Kolkata, July 5 (IANS) Saddled with huge unsold inventory, the number of new launches across eight cities in the housing market reduced by nine per cent in the last six months, real estate consulting firm Knight Frank India said on Tuesday.
"New launches reduced by nine per cent in six months from 117,200 units in H1 2015 (first half year of 2015) to less than 107,120 units in H1 2016," a firm's report said.
The number of new launches in the last three years across the top eight cities registered the lowest point as developers became cautious because of the huge unsold inventory that has been piling up since 2013, the report said.
The eight cities are Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, NCR (National Capital Region) and Pune.
However, there was a seven per cent growth in terms of sales in the January-June period this year as the number of units sold jumped to 135,015 units from 126,615 units in the same period last year.
The unsold units available in the market have reduced by seven per cent to less than 660,240 units in the first six months this year from 710,340 units in the same period last year, according to the report.
"Housing segment is recovering as sales have been rising, new launches have reduced and inventory pressure has eased off significantly in the last six months," firm's Chief Economist and National Director-Research Samantak Das said.
Among new launches, the NCR witnessed the sharpest drop of 41 percent year-on-year (y-o-y), followed by Chennai and Pune at 36 and 32 per cent respectively. Mumbai recorded a growth in new launches by more than 29 per cent y-o-y in January-June period.
Price growth across all the cities remained muted during the last six months, the report said.
In the office segment, there was a 12 per cent growth in the transaction volume across the top six cities of India.
Transactions increased from 17.9 million sqare feet in H1 2015 to 20 mn sq ft in the latest six-monthly period, the firm said.
