Hyderabad, Jan 10 (Agency) The residential sector saw record breaking sales in 2023 with 271,800 units across the top seven cities (Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, and Pune) in the country, according to a report released by JLL India, a premier and largest professional services firm specialising in real estate. Despite higher level of home loan interest rates during 2023 and prices moving northwards, the home buying mood remained upbeat, a big thumbs up to the domestic sentiment. In fact, 2023 has become the best year for the residential market as it surpassed the previous peak of 2010 by 25 percent, the report stated.. On a y-o-y basis as well, 2023 sales were up by 26 percent, with every quarter performing better than the previous one. The fourth quarter of the year saw stupendous sales with 75,500 units sold during the quarter, making it also the best performing quarter ever.
The tech driven cities — Pune, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad — witnessed a remarkable growth in sales as compared to the previous year. The demand is primarily driven by an increasing return to office in the IT/ITeS sector and expansion of global firms and Global Capability Centres (GCCs) along with setting up of new ones. In addition, the quality supply brought in by prominent developers has pushed up the sales in these cities to a large extent.”. said Dr Samantak Das, Chief Economist, and Head Research & REIS, India, JLL In 2023, there was a rise in residential prices across the top seven cities of India in the range of 4-16 percent y-o-y. Bengaluru has seen the maximum rise to the tune of 16 percent followed by Delhi NCR at 12 per cent. The increase in prices is seen across the spectrum of projects that have high demand and less ready-to-move inventory.
New phases of existing projects are also getting launched at higher prices. Residential launches in 2023 at 294,330 units are the highest ever surpassing the previous high of 281,000 units in 2010. Compared with the previous year, new launches in 2023 witnessed a growth of 19 per cent y-o-y, the report said. Developers have realigned their marketing strategies based on the current market dynamics, and this is clearly getting reflected in increasing number of launches in the higher ticket size projects. Around 33 percent of the launches in 2023 were in the price bracket of above INR 1.5 crore. On a y-o-y comparison, larger residential markets of Delhi NCR and Bengaluru saw a decline in their unsold inventory levels by 19% and 16.8%, respectively. An assessment of years to sell (YTS) showed that the expected time to liquidate the stock has declined by 8 months from 2.9 years in Q4 2022 to 2.1 years in Q4 2023, an indication of robust sales growth. The growth trajectory is likely to continue in 2024 and we expect the residential sales to be around 300,000-315,000 units (10-15% Y-o-Y growth), with the assumption that India’s current GDP growth would sustain with a range bound inflation in the economy and a decrease in home loan interest rate by 40-50 bps during the year. Strategic land acquisitions at prime locations as well as along growth corridors in cities is expected to strengthen the supply inflow across cities, the report added.