-By Industrial India Content Team
Latest data by Anarock reveals a significant year-on-year drop of 42% in the first quarter of 2020 towards the housing sector due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In Q1 2020, residential sales in the top 7 cities stood at 45,200 units, against 78,510 units a year ago.
Anuj Puri, Chairman – ANAROCK Property Consultants, says: “Given the ongoing global healthcare calamity, it’s no surprise that housing sales and new project launches across India’s top 7 cities decreased both on yearly and quarterly basis. As expected, monthly data trends reveal that March – the month when most advisories and lock-down were imposed – saw a steep decline in both new launches and housing sales against the preceding two months.”
“The Government has taken an inarguably necessary hard-line stance to curtail the spread of the virus. The lock-downs have stalled construction activity and will lead to project delays in the future, but this is a reality the sector must accept and live with.”
Unsold inventory saw a marginal decline of 1% quarterly – from 6.48 lakh units in Q4 2019 to 6.44 lakh units by Q1 2020, and 3% y-o-y – from 6.65 lakh units in Q1 2019 to 6.44 lakh units by Q1 2020.
Residential property prices across the top cities remained stagnant in Q1 2020 over the previous yearly and quarter basis.