Southern real estate markets feel the heat

The southern cities of Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai have together seen residential sales decline by 5 per cent in the first three quarters of calendar 2019 against the corresponding period in 2018, a new report has said.

The western cities of Pune and Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) raced far ahead and clocked 33 per cent jump in sales over the same period. Even the National Capital Region recorded 15 per cent yearly rise in housing sales between January and September, a report by Anarock Property Consultants has said.

Around 61,400 residential units were sold in the three southern cities between January and September against 64,420 units in the first three quarters of 2018. Nearly 93,930 units were sold in the MMR and Pune in 2019 against 70,740 units in the corresponding period in 2018.

Altogether, the top 7 cities recorded sales of 2,02,200 units in 2019 till September, of which western cities comprised 46 per cent share while southern region consisted of 30 per cent share. New launches in southern cities were also restricted and witnessed a mere 3 per cent yearly growth — from 48,410 units in first three quarters of 2018 to 50,070 units this year. MMR and Pune saw 65 per cent growth in new supply in a year — from 61,040 units in 2018 to over 1,00,470 units in 2019 (more than double the new supply in the main southern cities). In NCR, launches rose by 59 per cent in a year from 17,230 units in 2018 to 27,390 units this year.

The southern cities shed unsold stock by 11 per cent during the same period, while their western counterparts largely maintained status quo. As on Q3, the southern cities have a combined unsold stock of nearly 119,000 units, which was over 134,000 units in 2018. MMR and Pune, meanwhile, currently have nearly 313000 unsold units — almost the same as last year. This was largely due to the ample new supply added in the market during this year.