Affordable housing records a surge of 27% in new units launch, Mumbai tops the list

Mumbai witnessed highest number of launches at over 19,400 new residential units till Sept

Soon after the Central Government announced incentivising the affordable housing segment, several developers across top eight cities have shown an interest in constructing affordable houses, says a real estate firm’s report. Interestingly, all other cities, except for Mumbai, saw a decline in new launches.

Cushman and Wakefield, a global real estate service firm, in its latest reports covering the top eight cities of India, revealed that affordable housing sector has recorded a surge of 27 per cent in new units launched.

However, overall residential unit launches recorded a decline of 33 per cent, and was at approximately 60,000 units in the first three quarters of 2017 (January-September). Hardeep Singh Puri, minister of housing and urban affairs had recently announced eight PPP models for the private sector to invest in the affordable housing segment with an aim to bring in more investment in affordable housing.

Seven cities namely, Ahmedabad, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad and Kolkata saw a decline in new launches mostly due to the introduction of Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) and GST implementation.

The report explained that the first quarter of the year had the rollover challenges of demonetisation (November 2016) to grapple with leaving many developers no choice but to defer their launch plans.

The report claimed that Mumbai witnessed the highest number of launches at over 19,400 new residential units till September 2017. Out of the total launches in Mumba, i affordable housing sector was close to 10000 units registering a rise of 300 percent over same time last year. Mumbai was followed by Pune (8,400) and Bengaluru (8,200).

Chennai witnessed the steepest decline in new launches, which was lower by over 50 per cent in 2017 over same time last year. According to the report, the city only saw 2,700 new homes due to a massive slowdown in construction due to prolonged political uncertainty and delayed notification of RERA in the state.