Housing sales rise 7% in Jan-Mar across 8 cities; avg prices up 7%; new supply up 50%: Report

"India's housing sector is again emerging as a bright spot in the country's economy, helping it spring out of the pandemic-induced slowdown. With further normalisation of activity in the months to follow, we expect greater positive changes," said Dhruv Agarwala, Group CEO, PropTiger.com, Housing.com and Makaan.com. As per the data, housing sales in Ahmedabad rose 18 percent to 5,549 units during January-March 2022 from 4,687 units in the corresponding period of the previous year. Bengaluru saw a 3 percent increase in sales of residential properties to 7,671 units from 7,431 units in the year-ago period.

In Mumbai, housing sales increased by 26 percent to 23,361 units from 18,574 units. Sales in Pune went up 19 percent to 16,314 units from 13,725 units. However, housing sales in Chennai declined 26 percent to 3,299 units from 4,468 units, while demand was 19 percent lower in Delhi-NCR at 5,013 units in January-March 2022 as against 6,188 units a year ago.

Hyderabad saw a 15 percent decline in housing sales to 6,556 units against 7,721 units in January-March 2021. Housing sales in Kolkata also fell 15 percent to 2,860 units in January-March 2022 from 3,382 units in the year-ago period.

Also Read | PM Modi inaugurates 5.21 lakh houses of PMAY scheme beneficiaries in Madhya Pradesh

"As expected, housing price growth also accelerated during the quarter, with every market covered in the analysis showing an upwards movement in average rates of new properties. Most of this increase in rates can be attributed to the hike in prices of building materials," PropTiger said. The sharpest uptick in property prices was registered in Chennai, where the average rate of properties has undergone a 9 percent appreciation in the past one year.

Both Pune and Ahmedabad witnessed an 8 percent rise in their average property rates. Housing prices in Hyderabad rose by 7 percent, Bengaluru 6 percent and Kolkata 5 percent. In the MMR and the Delhi-NCR region, the price appreciated by 4 percent each.

"House ownership may become costlier with various government-funded subsidy schemes coming to an end in March this year. This price appreciation would be further compounded by rising home loan rates if the RBI were to hike the benchmark lending rate, which may well be on the cards given inflationary pressures," Agarwala said. REA India is a part of REA Group Ltd of Australia. It owns Housing.com, Makaan.com and PropTiger.com.