Despite festive recovery, July-December housing sales see a decline: Knight Frank

Oct-Dec quarter shows signs of recovery

While the tepid sales and launch numbers are no doubt a reflection of the dullness prevalent right through the COVID-19 pandemic, the October-December quarter saw stellar festive sales. Soaking up the festive boom, the last quarter of 2020, Knight Frank’s report said registered a whopping 61,593 residential units in sales, up 84 percent from the previous quarter. This period also saw a more-than-healthy 55,033 launches pan-India.

“A significant amount of latent demand came to market during the festive season in Q4 2020 and as a result, with 84 percent quarter-on-quarter jump, housing sales reached an exact 100 percent of pre-COVID-19 levels,” Baijal added.

Mumbai the top performer, Bengaluru the worst

Through the general gloom, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region seems to have been the standout performer in sales. The city sold 30,042 residential units, a pleasantly surprising 10 percent rise in year-on-year sales. Taking a cue from its neighbour, Pune saw a similar 9 percent jump in sales. In all, Mumbai and Pune were the only two cities that saw a spike in year-on-year sales.

The worst performer in H2 2020 was Bengaluru, which the report says sold only all of 11,402 units in the second half of last year, registering a massive fall of 43 percent year-on-year. In fact, Bengaluru ended the year selling 51 percent fewer units when compared to 2019.

Among the long list of other poor performers in 2020 were cities like NCR, Hyderabad and Chennai registered a sales decline of 31 percent, 34 percent and 29 percent, respectively between July and December.