Home sales in India’s top eight cities was recorded at 94,997 units during H2 2020, a 19% fall year-on-year, according to a recent report by Knight Frank India.
With total launches across the country at 146,628 units, launches were lower by 34% year-on-year in 2020.
However, sales momentum in the Mumbai and Pune markets remained strong. Sales increased by 10% year-on-year to 30,042 units in Mumbai and 9% year-on-year to 16,870 units in Pune in H2 2020.
In H2 2020, weighted average residential prices fell significantly across markets. Prices fell the most in Chennai at 9% year-on-year followed by Pune and NCR at 5% and 4% respectively.
Unsold inventory across the top eight markets dropped marginally in 2020, as developers continued to focus on liquidating existing inventory, pushing down unsold inventory volumes for the sixth consecutive year by 2% to 437,920 units in 2020.
In H2 2020, Mumbai had the highest quantum of unsold inventory at 146,916 units, followed by NCR at 110,674 units year-on-year and Bengaluru at 74,764 units.
Homes priced over Rs 50 lakh made up approximately 57% of the total sales during H2 2020. A correction in values made purchase of homes across all major markets highly attractive. Large volume markets like Bengaluru, Mumbai and Pune saw year-on-year (YoY) revisions of 1%, 3% and 5% respectively.
New home launches were lower in H2 2020 by 23% year-on-year at 86,139 units. In H2 2020, Hyderabad was the only market out of eight cities to witness a growth in new launches by 4% year-on-year to 8,404 units. NCR residential market was the worst hit, with new home launches declining 44% year-on-year during H2 2020.
While unsold inventory levels improved, sluggish sales velocity in mid-2020 led Quarters to Sell (QTS) to rise to an average of 10.1 quarters.
