Amid projections of India's economy taking a beating on account of coronavirus-induced health and financial crisis, new launches and housing sales declined significantly in the country's eight prime residential markets during the April to June period, a quarterly analysis by real estate brokerage firm PropTiger.com shows.
The cities covered in the analysis are Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Delhi-NCR (Noida, Greater Noida, Gurugram, Ghaziabad and Faridabad), the MMR (Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane) and Pune.
According to the report titled 'Real Insight: Q2 2020,' housing sales in the three months dipped 79 per cent over the same period last year. As against 92,764 units in Q2 2019, only 19,038 units were sold during April to June this year.
Affordable housing (units priced up to Rs 45 lakh) continued to dominate the real-estate sector accounting for a 44 per cent share of all sales, said the report.
The report, however, indicates that the pandemic has spurred a big change as far as the closing of real estate transactions is concerned.
More and more buyers switched to digital channels for their future purchases due to the lockdown amid real estate gaining prominence as a preferred asset class as huge volatility in other investment options in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.
( With inputs from ANI )