Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Recovery in realty

15 Mar 2010 12:16 AM PDT
Delhi:
Residential markets across major cities of India have seen significant appreciation in values towards the close of 2009. This trend is most prominent in NCR and Mumbai, the two key residential markets in India, where values in Oct-Dec 2009 appreciated, compared to the same period the year before, says Cushman and Wakefield in a report.
The report said that recovery in NCR and Mumbai is a definite precursor to the expected trends in 2010. However, it would be premature, the report adds, to predict a bounce-back for the entire sector. The other markets which are still witnessing some correction are expected to stabilize only in the next 3-6 months. These are expected to see positive signs of recovery by the middle of this year, when values across the board would stabilise but will remain within acceptable range.
The average increase in capital values in various micro-markets in these two metro areas has been in the range of 3% to 25% over the previous year, the report shows (see chart). Most micro-markets in these two cities have recorded stable to appreciating capital values over the last quarter as well.
NCR and Mumbai have shown a faster recovery than other cities due to the fact that these are high-demand markets, both from end users and investors, who were holding back their requirements as a result of economic slowdown , which created a kind of uncertainty in the job markets. The best outcome of the slowdown is the emergence of affordable housing in the country.
At the same time, the strong recovery in the economy led to sharp upward correction in the capital values for mid-ranged housing due to the quantum of demand and affordability.
Certain broad trends that were noticed across cities were that peripheral and the suburban markets witnessed the highest correction but were also one of the first markets to bounce back, C&W says. Another shift in the trend is the rise in demands for properties under construction.
The report said, there was a clear shift towards readyto-move-in properties during the beginning of the year, when there was uncertainty on the capability of a developer to complete a project. But that has receded now resulting in a rise in risk appetite for properties under construction.
In the NCR region, demand for affordable housing in the range of Rs 20 lakh to Rs 40 lakh could be understood from the fact that a number of projects completely sold out within a couple of days of their launches. Recently, in Noida, Supertech , which launched apartments for Rs 9.75 lakh, (this is the first project in NCR for sub-Rs 10 lakh) could sell around 500 apartments in a couple of days.
The new trend has led to increase in the volume of transactions. Supertech CMD, R K Arora, says that the developers have now shifted to high-volume business from high margin ones. However, he also pointed out that this became possible because of the relaxation in the density norms (number of apartments allowed to be constructed on a given area). Therefore, the construction activities are set to rise in 2010. Source: MagicBrick

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