‘Tier-2 cities see 173% surge in interest from home buyers’

The action in real estate seems to have percolated to tier-2 cities as people searching for property deals surged 173% in the first three months of calendar year 2018 in 25 tier-2 cities. These include Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Indore, Patna, Jaipur, Bhubaneswar and Surat, among others.

“Home search trends in 25 cities indicate 173% growth in traffic from tier-2 cities during the first quarter of 2018 compared to the first quarter of 2017,” according to a report by Makaan.com, an online real estate portal owned by Singapore-based Elara Technologies , which also owns Housing.com and PropTiger.com.

Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) registered the highest growth in terms of searches at 489% year-on-year (y-o-y), followed by Patna (Bihar) which saw search growth by 400% yearon-year.

Increase in property searches has also resulted in higher lead (enquiry) generation, implying people who actually show interest in a property they have searched for on a portal by following up. According to the report, lead generation from tier-2 cities accounted for 23% of total lead generation.

Besides search and leads, overall listing of properties has grown by 22% on the portal over the period, with 88% buy listings, and the rest being rent listings. Ravi Bhushan, group chief product and technology officer of Housing.com, PropTiger.com and Makaan.com said, “The tier-2 cities. These cities are doubling up as major centres of economics and that is evident in the way that the housing market is shaping up.” Other experts are also expecting a pick-up in the real estate market, especially in tier-2 cities, but not so soon.

“We were expecting a revival in real estate sector in tier II cities, given the government’s Make-in-India policy and infrastructure development like industrial corridors passing through different tier-2 cities and creation of special economic zones. But such significant jump so early is surprising,” said Samantak Das, chief economist and national director-Research, Knight Frank India.