Festive season has failed to bring cheers to the real estate market as despite attractive offers and discounts developers are not getting sales they were expecting.
The festival season is considered auspicious for home buying and real estate developers are always keen to battle the inventory pile-up with a slew of discounts.
According to experts there are about nine lakhs of unsold inventories across the country by the end of the last week adding that developers are not reporting sales as they were expecting.
“The real estate market in the festival season has not taken off as expected because all developers are offering discounts and gifts so buyers are confused this time,” Property Guru CMD, Vikas Sahni told The Pioneer.
However, he added that “Market has performed better than last year,”
This festive season has not been a time for new launches. Buyers are not too keen and companies have a pile of unsold inventory.
According to liases Foras, the combined unsold inventory as of June was 765 million sq ft, or equivalent to 760,000 two-bedroom apartments, which will take about 35 months to clear at the current pace of sales.
Builders, especially in areas where the pain is greater (Noida, Greater Noida, Gurgaon, Navi Mumbai and Thane), are offering schemes on existing projects.
Vatika, for instance, is offering ready apartments in Gurgaon on a 20 per cent down payment and the remaining after 18 months, with no EMI or rent in the interim
But on the other hand there are developers who are claiming good business. Gaursons Managing Director Manoj Gaur said: “We are doing pretty well as compared to last season, we have sold 1000 units till now in affordable sections.
“We also are expecting sales to go up in coming months due to positive sentiments,” he added.
Similarly Amit Gupta, Managing Director, Orris Infrastructure said, “The market have started reviving. Both sales and queries have gone up. Due to stable Government and some good news for real estate sector has helped to boost the sales during festive season.”
“This festive season in overall market 15 and 25 percent sales have been improved. We are expecting some more sales in the coming days, more positive sentiment injected in the sector will help in converting queries into sales,” said Gupta.
According to an informal survey of top property consultancies in India, top corporates across sectors are looking to lease over 40 million sq ft of space in the top seven cities over the next 12-18 months.