Home sales grow

The real estate market has been continuously recovering over the past few quarters as substantial amount of ready stock available in the primary market has led to the market slowly transforming into a buyer’s market. A report released by real estate data, research and analytics firm PropEquity, on Wednesday revealed that total absorption of housing units increased by 6 per cent across top nine cities in India in the third quarter of 2018 to 51,142 versus Q3 2017.

As developers cleared old inventory and launched new phases/towers of previously launched projects, new launches took a dip in the third quarter and are expected to rise in the coming festive quarter. 

Traditionally, developers launch and sell maximum housing inventory in October-December quarter. New launches across key cities decreased considerably by 22 per cent as compared to the previous quarter. However, in comparison to year ago, they grew 12 per cent to 32,870 units.

“In the past one year prices have corrected and the realty market has started to revive somewhat. With the festive season coming up, developers will dole out discounts, finance schemes and freebies to push housing demand further. We continue to see strong traction for ready to move in and nearing completion projects to attract demand,” Samir Jasuja, founder and managing director at PropEquity said.

Nine cities were included for the study included Gurgaon, Noida, Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Thane and Chennai.

Signature Global to invest Rs 1,000 crore in six projects 

Realty firm Signature Global delivered its first affordable housing project in Gurugram last week and said it plans to launch six projects in 2018-19 with an investment of `1,000 crore. Signature Global has launched 9 projects in Gurugram comprising 9,400 flats under Haryana government’s affordable housing policy. The company delivered its first housing project ‘Solera’ comprising 1,000 units. This project was launched in 2015. “We will hand over two more projects this fiscal comprising 1,800 units,” company’s chairman Pradeep Aggarwal said. He added that the company was planning to launch five housing projects in Gurugram and one in Ghaziabad comprising 7,000 units. The total construction cost is estimated at around Rs 1,000 crore. Housing projects launched in Gurugram are in Rs 15-25 lakh price range. The group has also started one housing project at Karnal in Haryana comprising 350 units.  

‘Zero cost’ homes

Real estate company, Sowparnika Projects and Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd., has announced ‘zero cost homes’, which means the buyers will have minimum initial payment liability. A homebuyer will have to pay a five per cent initial down payment, after which the realty company will bear the remaining costs involved through pre- EMI scheme, while also returning the down payment to the homebuyer. Once the keys are handed over to the buyer, he can pay the balance 5 per cent (5:90:5 loan scheme) money to the company three months after taking possession. 

Shapoorji Pallonji to enter NCR market

Diversified firm Shapoorji Pallonji’s real estate arm plans to launch three projects in Delhi-NCR this fiscal, which will mark its foray into the market. Group CEO Venkatesh Gopalakrishnan said in Mumbai earlier this week. “We have nearly 90 million sq ft of development in the pipeline. Out of this, we are launching 35 million. We have been looking at the NCR market for 6-7 years, but were able to buy land only in the last one year as now we are seeing the prices softening. We saw this as an opportunity to build a product and sell it at a reasonable and affordable price,” he said.

 In the NCR market, the company is developing a mid-income project under the Joyville brand, which will come up on nearly 1.2 million sq ft in the Northern Peripheral Road in Gurgaon. “On the same road, we are planning to launch another project in the range of Rs 90 lakh and above. We have land in Noida and we will be launching a project here in the next couple of months. — TNS & Agencies