Residential units up 5% to 132,000 in Jan-September 2013: C&W

As slowdown trends still discourage the developers in several metro cities, global real estate consultants Cushman & Wakefield (C&W) in their latest report stated that top eight cities witnessed total estimated residential unit launches of 132,000 units between January to September 2013 which represented an increase of 5 per cent as compared the to the same period for 2012.

High end property launches in the first 3 quarters of 2013, which was recorded at 23,500 units, saw the highest growth of 142 per cent over same time last year, while launches in the luxury housing category recorded a decline of 10.5 per cent between Jan – Sept 2013 over same period last year. The residential market has been witnessing stagnant trends in the capital values as well through most micro markets as through across major cities on account of restrained activities.

Shveta Jain, executive director (Residential Services), Cushman & Wakefield said “Contrary to tradition, there has been a decline in new launch activities in Q3 2013 as economic conditions have not been encouraging for developers. Slowed down in demand with consumer confidence at lower ebb on account of increased and consistently high pricing in key cities. Having said that, the demand from first time buyers and end users has been consistent as genuine buyers with adequate capital look at this phase as ideal to enter the property market on account of stable capital values.”

Shveta further said, “Most developers are focused on keeping the levels of unsold inventories low, thus to promote sales, developers are resolving to innovating marketing to ensure buyers can get more value from their product. Their problems are compounded on account of higher input cost, thereby keeping capital values consistent. Developers are looking at alternate strategies from promotional offers to resizing of units in order to meet the end consumer demand of economically viable housing. Developers have reduced their concentration on low demand category of luxury and on affordable housing which has high input costs.”

Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and Chennai witnessed a quarter on quarter increase of 41%, 25% and 28% respectively in Q3. Though Hyderabad witnessed the maximum decline of 56% in launches compared to Q2 2013, it however witnessed one of the highest rises in y-o-y appreciation. Number of launches in 2013 more than tripled in Bengaluru to nearly 35,000 units till September, 2013. Bengaluru, NCR and Mumbai, respectively contributed to 27%, 23% and 19% of the launches across top eight cities in 2013.

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