Hyderabad only Indian city where home prices rose; Delhi sees 4% YoY fall

Hyderabad is the only Indian city where residential property prices rose in the last quarter of 2020, but globally it has a low rank of 122 in the Global Residential Cities Index Q4 2020, by Knight Frank.

Home prices in Hyderabad rose by a marginal 0.2% YoY in the quarter, according to the index, which also showed that the fall in prices was the steepest in Chennai, placing it at bottom of the list of 150 cities across the world. Prices rose in 81 percent of the cities.

In Q4 2020, residential sales in Hyderabad jumped by 127% QoQ to 3,651 units from 1,609 units in Q3 2020, mainly because of festive season promotions and the COVID-induced push for newer homes with a better layout that meets the work-from-home requirement.

Ankara in Turkey leads the chart with the highest growth rate of 30.2%, followed by Izmir in Turkey and Istanbul in Turkey at 29.4% and 27.9%, respectively.

In terms of falling residential prices, Chennai was the lowest-ranked Indian city standing at the 150th spot, registering a 9.0% decline in home prices, it said.

Prices across the 150 cities worldwide rose by an average 5.6% in 2020, up from 3.2% in 2019. The report said 81% of cities saw prices increase in the year to Q4 2020, the index’s annual rate of growth increased for the sixth consecutive quarter in Q4 2020. 20% of cities registered double-digit price growth in the year to Q4 2020.

Among the other Indian cities where prices fell up to 5 percent, Bengaluru was ranked 129th with a decline of 0.8% YoY, followed by Ahmedabad ranked 143^rd  with a fall of 3.1% YoY, Mumbai ranked 144^th with a drop of 3.2% YoY, and Delhi at the 146^th spot with a decline of 3.9% YoY.

Home prices fell 4.3% YoY in Kolkata, which was ranked 147^th.  Indian cities where prices fell more than 5% include Pune, ranked 148^th  and Chennai, ranked 150^th  with 5.3% YoY and 9.0% YoY decline, respectively in Q4 2020.

“The performance of Hyderabad’s residential market has remained consistent all through the pandemic, with the city’s real estate market maintaining annual price growth in each quarter, all through 2020. This performance can largely be attributed to the city being a preferred destination by professionals from IT/ITeS companies,” said Shishir Baijal, chairman and managing director, Knight Frank India.

The Indian residential market has rebounded over the last three quarters with the pandemic experience on owning houses, lower prices and multi-decade low interest rates for home loans. Government interventions such as the cut in stamp duty in key markets also helped the sector gain momentum back to pre-Covid levels, he said.

The Global Residential Cities Index tracks the movement in mainstream residential prices across 150 cities worldwide using official statistics.Source: Knight Frank Research