Mumbai’s Pandemic Home Buyers are Young, Opportunist And Ready To Move

Stressed economic circumstances notwithstanding, several prospective homebuyers in Mumbai have bought their first-ever homes — while contending with a nationwide lockdown. Believe it or not, a handful of developers have also done decent business at a time when selling homes was touted as next to impossible. Lodha Developers has now joined the exclusive club whose existing members like Godrej Properties and Anarock Property Consultants, have sold a few hundred homes during the lockdown.

On Sunday, Lodha sold 80 homes to mark Akshaya Tritya, widely regarded an auspicious occasion to buy gold and sometimes, real estate. The sales blitzkrieg meant that during the ongoing nationwide lockdown, which began on March 25, the company has sold a total of 300 homes, in Mumbai. A week ago, Anarock reported real estate sales worth Rs 252 crore during the lockdown. A couple of weeks prior, Godrej Properties said it had sold 500 homes during the second half of March 2020.

“There is an increased desire to own a home and buyers are ready to transact with us,” said Prashant Bindal, Chief Sales Officer, Lodha, “Ready-to-move-in homes and projects with integrated living are witnessing high interest. Lower interest rates on home loans are also helping.”

Lodha’s sales data points to some interesting insights. As expected, the RBI’s move to cut reverse repo rate by 25 basis points has augured well for home-buying, with bank interest rates ranging from 7.15 percent to 7.8 percent, according to property consultants, Anarock. Secondly, ready-to-move-in homes are the flavour of this increasingly uncertain season, in the residential market, and why not? After all, Anarock data suggests that the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and Pune together account for 45 percent of the country’s 78,000 unsold and ready-to-move-in real estate stock.

“Of the total unsold ready stock, MMR and Pune together have approximately 35,200 units, which are collectively worth Rs 37,550 crore,” said Anuj Puri, Chairman, Anarock, “This accounts for 57 percent of the total value of unsold and ready-to-move-in homes across our top seven real estate markets.”

Anarock’s data indicates that of the total 6.44 lakh unsold homes in India nearly 12 percent are completed and ready. This totals to 78,000 homes, valued at Rs 65,950 crore. While MMR and Pune account for the lion’s share of this number, NCR is a distant second with just about 15,200 unsold, ready-to-move-in homes, with Hyderabad bringing up the rear at just 2,400 units that are ready to move in.

“Although construction activity is completely halted all across, first-time homebuyers are at an unprecedented advantage to negotiate good deals on ready-to-move-in options and simultaneously benefit from all-time-low interest rates,” Puri added.

(Source: CNBC TV18)