Interest rate on the rise, but housing sales in Delhi-NCR set to breach 8 year peak

GURUGRAM: Notwithstanding the rising interest rates, steadily growing home ownership sentiments has been a strong driver of residential property sales across the top seven cities of this country, including NCR, since the beginning of this year.
This inference can be drawn from the latest report by real estate consultants Anarock, revealing that the housing sales across the top seven cities in the first three quarters of this year and the ongoing last quarter are all set to breach the previous peak of 2014.
In NCR, particularly, the top three markets were New Gurgaon, the Dwarka Expressway and Greater Noida (west) with a collective new supply of approximately 13,550 units in this period of 2022, as per the report.
Also, the unsold inventory in NCR reduced to 1.33 lakh units by the end of Q3 (July-September 2022) - the lowest since 2013 when it was 1.51 lakh units. The report projects total sales in the top seven cities - NCR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and Pune - to exceed 3.6 lakh units in 2022 against the previous peak in 2014 when 3.43 lakh units were sold.
Anuj Puri, chairman of the Anarock Group, said "The January-September period already saw housing sales and new launches surpass the full-year readings of 2019 with approximately 2.73 lakh units sold in nine months of 2022 and new launches at 2.65 lakh units. Approximately 2.61 lakh units were sold in 2019, with new supply in that year at 2.34 lakh units". As per the report, in the pre-Covid year of 2019, affordable housing had the highest supply share with 40% of 2,36,560 units launched in the top seven cities. In the first nine months of 2022, affordable housing supply reduced to 21% of approximately 2.65 lakh units. City-based developers are also upbeat about the increase in sales and appreciation in residential prices.
Yukti Nagpal, director of the Gulshan Group, said, "The segment is poised for further growth, and in 2023, I am sure we will surpass the 2022 numbers as well."
Ashwani Kumar of Pyramid Infratech, said, "What makes these numbers even more remarkable is that the sector has been able to achieve this performance despite a steady hike by RBI in repo rates of up to 2.25%. These figures also point us towards the future direction of realty."