CHENNAI: The fourth quarter of the calendar year is usually the most hectic time when it comes to real estate sales in Chennai. With the festive season, fat Diwali bonuses, the auspicious day of Dhanteras, real estate developers usually see a lot of prospective home buyers queuing up.
This fourth quarter, however, saw a massive slowdown in real estate sales in Chennai with a 55% drop in housing units sold year-over-year.
In Q4 of 2016, only 757 units were sold compared to 1,673 units in the same period the previous year. Number of project launches in the city fell to 58 from 93 in the year ago period.
“Demonetisation has definitely impacted sales in Chennai. The cash crunch along with cyclone Vardah were a downer when it came to people taking decisions on property,” said Sridhar Srinivasan, managing director, Chennai, Cushman & Wakefield.
However, this is part of an overall trend in Chennai real estate market, which got exacerbated with the cash ban. For instance, the fourth quarter of 2013 saw a high of 2,554 units being sold. After which there has been a decline to 1,629 units in 2014 to 1,673 in 2015.
However, Cushman & Wakefield expects the phenomena to be temporary and won’t last beyond the new two quarters.
As to the “cash” or “black money” component of real estate sales, Srinivasan said this has not impacted mid-segment sales. “Middle-level housing units have seen a high impact. The high-end and luxury segment, which use a higher component of cheque vs cash, saw lesser impact. We are expecting this trend to continue for the next two-three quarter,” he said.
Mid-level housing units saw a 21% dip to 662 units in the fourth quarter of 2016, compared to 840 sold units in the comparable quarter last year. High-end units, however, saw sales nearly double to 91 in Q4, from 49 in the year-ago.
Another reason as to why transactions are being hit is because of stamp duty and registration fee that need to be paid at offices. Given the role of the “cash” component in property deed clearances, demonetisation has definitely thrown a wrench in the works.
For the full-year, the number of projects in 2016 dipped 24% to 57 from 75 last year. The number of housing units also dipped 21% to 6,419 from 8,174.