Pune’s realty market sees festival cheer with pick up in sales

Pune’s realty market is witnessing a recovery this festival season. Some of the developers have launched new projects just before the festival while others are ready to launch projects that they had held back because of the pandemic and lockdowns.

“There is definitely an upsurge across Pune’s residential market,” says Aditi Watve, city head–Pune, Anarock Property Consultants.

Going by the Anarock data, the housing sales in October alone was almost equal to the number of units sold during July-September period, and this trend applied across the market in Pune, says Watve.

While ready-to-move in properties continue to be the hot favourite, even under-construction units nearing completion are witnessing significant traction, and sales are being led by end-users, while investors are largely staying away, she said.

“Looking at the current momentum in Pune, we can predict that housing sales in the ongoing quarter (October- December) will be almost equal to that of Q4FY19,” says Watve.

Buyers are getting attracted to properties that offer good deals and discounts and effectively reduce the overall cost of acquisition, she said.

“Properties priced between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 80 lakh are the sweet spot budget range. There is maximum demand for 2BHKs and 2.5BHKs with a carpet area ranging between 600-800 sq ft,” she said.

According to Vineet Goyal, joint MD of Kohinoor Group, the overall situation is improving and we are sensing a positive sentiment among the homebuyers, especially, in the first-time homebuyers segment. Additional cost benefits such as reduced stamp duty, affordable interest rate on home loans are the major pull factor, Goyal said. “We have decided to go ahead with our new projects launches in the next five to six months, which were kept on hold due to lockdown,” Goyal said.

Kalpataru’s sales are almost back to pre-Covid levels and the festive season will serve as an additional demand driver, says Parag Munot, MD of Kalpataru.

Kalpataru has four on-going projects. Residential sales have progressively improved from August, touching near pre-Covid levels today particularly in Pune and MMR, says Munot. “Stamp duty reduction, softening of interest rates, attractive payment schemes and the importance of having a secure life space has catalysed the demand,” says Munot. He believes that the market has reached the bottom of the price cycle and this was the most opportune time to acquire real estate, and customer confidence has staged an impressive comeback on the back of reduction of stamp duty in Maharashtra, besides developer schemes, and softening of interest rates.

More and more developers are witnessing a change in mood and see customers returning to the market.

Shapoorji Pallonji Real Estate (SPRE) says they have beaten the Covid blues and sold 800 apartments at its Joyville project in Pune. SPRE had launched the project having flats in the Rs 37.5 lakh to Rs 78 Lakh range. According to the company, it witnessed high traction from homebuyers and received around 1,500 expression of interests, Venkatesh Gopalkrishnan, CEO, SPRE, said.

Mantra Properties sold 675 units clocking a turnover of Rs 325 crore between August and October 2020. Mantra has sweetened the deal with an offer that saw 175 units being sold in October.

Rohit Gupta, CEO, Mantra Properties, said they have offered an 8% return on the investment scheme, where the payment made by the buyer towards the home will attract 8% interest and be paid out at the end of the first year and a similar return at the end of second year. It would work like a recurring deposit for two years, Gupta said. Mantra is bullish about the next two months as well given the onset of the festive season and increase in demand for home buying.

According to Anarock data of previous year trends, a significant increase during the festive season can be expected with many fence-sitters being lured by best deals. Developers have pulled out all the stops to attract buyers, announcing schemes for festive season —many of which result in an actual reduction in the cost of acquisition.

Pune may see housing sales rise by 34% in Q4 of 2020 as against Q3 of 2020 when sales stood at 4,850 units, says Anarock’s report.