Affordable housing takes centre stage in 2018
Commercial realty retained its status as the most buoyant sector.
MUMBAI: The Indian real estate industry showed strong signs of revival in 2018 with both residential and commercial realty segments witnessing an uptick in deals despite several headwinds. While affordable housing took centre stage in residential segment, property consultant Anarock said co-working emerged as the new poster child of commercial real estate.
“Coming as it did almost at the end of the year, the NBFC crisis put an entirely new spin to India’s 'cautiously optimistic outlook' and as of now, it shows no signs of relenting. The Indian real estate sector enters 2019 with a gun to its head,” said Anuj Puri, chairman, Anarcok Property Consultants.
In the residential real estate market, the new launch supply across top 7 cities is estimated to be 1,93,600 units by the end of 2018. This according to the property consultant is 32 per cent higher than 1,46,850 units in 2017.
Affordable housing accounted for the lion’s share of this supply with over 41 per cent of the new supply coming into this category. Housing sales in 2018 are estimated to be 2,45,500 units if we consider Q4 sales to match those of the preceding quarter. This is an increase of 16 per cent over 2,11,140 units in 2017.
More importantly, the unsold housing stock stood at 6.87 lakh units in Q3 2018 was 8 per cent down from the same period last year.
“Affordable housing, backed by a series of government sops during 2018, kept the residential supply momentum ticking. In sharp contrast to earlier years where the ‘affordable’ tag was considered down-market and avoidable, 2018 saw almost every real estate developer – regardless of market footprint and previous category orientations – eager to take a bite out of the affordable housing pie,” Mr Puri added.
In terms of market traction, commercial real estate retained its status as the most buoyant sector in 2018 across major cities. Demand for Grade A office space saw new highs and vacancy levels declined in prime locales. As per Anarock data, total office absorption across the top 7 cities is geared to cross 39 mn. sq. ft. in 2018, given that 28.2 mn sq. ft. were absorbed until the third quarter. This denotes an annual increase of 19 per cent in absorption.