Chennai: Residential launches and sales were negatively impacted in Chennai during the April to June period, a consequence of the ongoing pandemic as commercial activity slowed significantly, according to a quarterly report by Proptitger.com.
New supply fell a huge 75 per cent from the prior year to less than 650 units launched largely in the OMR region that accounted for more than 90 per cent share. Most new launches were in the mid-market segment and were priced upto Rs 1 crore, the report titled Real Insight: Q2 2020 says.
Sales fell by 70 per cent on a YoY basis, to only 1,312 units during the recently concluded market with OMR and Chennai West accounting for a significant share of the sales. A significant proportion of sales were in the mid-market segment with prices from Rs 45 lakh–75 lakh closely followed by the projects in the less than Rs 45-lakh price category.
Chennai buyers are more inclined towards the 2 BHK configuration, with this configuration claiming 47 per cent share of the total sales, closely followed by the 3 BHK configuration at 42 per cent.
As anticipated, demand was adversely impacted due to the current pandemic and the resulting economic uncertainty combined with growing unemployment; in fact, our recent Housing-NAREDCO buyer survey indicated buyers have pushed back their purchasing decision upto a year.
In this period of crisis, developers are understandably cautious and are focused on completing existing projects. We are unlikely to see new launches increase significantly for the next few quarters as developers wait for demand revival and augment their cash flows through sales of existing units. Notwithstanding these lacklustre results, buyers continue to affirm their faith in real estate as an asset class with over a third of our surveyed buyers choosing it as their preferred form of investment, says Mani Rangarajan, group COO, Housing.com, Makaan.com and Proptiger.com