Branded real estate developers may corner 50% mkt share this year: Anarock- QHN

Branded real estate developers are likely to capture more than 50 per cent market share in expected total housing sales at record 3.6 lakh units this year across seven major cities, according to Anarock.

In his round-up of India’s primary residential market for 2022, property consultant Anarock Chairman Anuj Puri has highlighted that housing sales this year would be over 3.6 lakh units across the seven cities, surpassing the previous high of 3.43 lakh units in 2014.

The seven cities are Delhi-NCR, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune.

Among the new trends, Puri said the demand was driven by end-users and the Grade A developers have cornered more market share.

“Demand, driven primarily by end-users, was mainly focused on projects by Grade A developers, who gained even more market share in 2022,” he said.

About 60 per cent of the 2.65 lakh units launched during January-September 2022 was by branded developers.

Puri noted that these branded players had a share of more than 55 per cent in the 2.73 lakh units sold during first nine months of this year.

The trend has continued in the current quarter.

As per the Anarock report, branded or Grade A developers include listed players, developers who have been operating for a decade and more, even newly-formed entities of large conglomerates and also those with sizeable areas under development either locally or pan-India.

In the last few years, the real estate sector is witnessing consolidation in demand towards large, branded and trusted developers who have good track record of completing housing projects.

Almost all listed developers reported a healthy growth during 2021-22 as well as the first two quarters of ongoing financial year.

In 2022-23, Prestige Estates, Macrotech Developers (Lodha group), Godrej Properties and DLF are leading in sales bookings among listed entities. In unlisted, M3M Group, Signature Global and Gaurs Group have posted good sales in Delhi-NCR market.

“2022 was a phenomenal year for the real estate sector, particularly the residential segment,” Puri of Anarock said.

There was robust housing demand across the seven major cities as well as tier 2 and tier 3 cities, he added.

Puri attributed the strong revival in demand to hiring, low interest rates on home loans and growing desire to have home ownership.

“In the year’s first half, job security had improved vis-a-vis the uncertain pandemic period. There was robust hiring in the IT/ITeS sector, though the second half brought more sobering news on this front,” Puri said.

Financial services showed a good hiring graph throughout.

“Low home loan rates and steadily growing homeownership sentiment also helped residential real estate gain and maintain momentum,” Puri said.

Going by housing sales currently and in first three quarters of this year, Anarock said the year 2022 will have breached the previous peak of 2014 with all-time high sales across the top seven cities.

The consultant has projected the total sales in the seven cities to exceed 3.6 lakh units in 2022. In 2014, the previous peak year, 3.43 lakh units were sold.

The January-September period already saw housing sales surpass the full-year readings of 2019 with 2.73 lakh units sold.

About 2.61 lakh units were sold in full 2019. “Housing prices increased by an average of 5-7 per cent in 2022, but this – coupled with increased home loan rates – did not impact residential sales in 2022,” Puri said.

These price hikes were inevitable after relative stagnation for 2-3 years, he noted. Many tier 2 & 3 cities are the new growth engines where a lot of the country’s real estate action will take place in the coming years.

These cities include Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Nashik, Kochi, and Lucknow, where low property prices and improved infrastructure facilities are attracting both end-users and investors.