MUMBAI: Despite the gradual hike in property prices and home loan interest rates in 2022, housing sales in the top seven cities hit a new peak this year, breaching the previous high of 2014, a new study has stated.
An ANAROCK research report released on Tuesday said around 3.65 lakh apartments were sold in 2022 against 2.36 lakh units in 2021 across the top seven cities—Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), National Capital Region (NCR), Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai. This was a 54% increase year-on-year. The last peak, according to the report, was seen in 2014 when 3.4 lakh units were sold across top seven cities.
In terms of cities, MMR recorded the highest sale of approximately 1.09 flats this year, followed by NCR with 63,700.
“The two realty hotspots are together once again the leading residential markets,” it said.
Meanwhile, new launches across the top seven cities saw a 51% annual rise—from 2,36,700 units in 2021 to nearly 3,57,600 new units in 2022. MMR and Hyderabad witnessed maximum new launches in 2022, together comprising nearly 54% share of the total new launches in the year.
Anuj Puri, chairman, ANAROCK Group, said 2022 “has been a phenomenal year for residential real estate despite all headwinds, including rising property prices, interest rate hikes and all geopolitical tensions etc. Housing sales in top seven cities breached the previous highs of 2014 while new launches in comparison remained restricted”.
“While it was widely anticipated that the rise in property costs and interest rates towards the second half of 2022 would have a cascading impact on the residential sales, the fourth quarter of 2022 remained quite robust with as many as 92,160 units sold in the period,” said Puri. “Interestingly, NCR became the shining star in 2022 which deliberately restricted new supply in the year to approximately 22,350 units but witnessed robust housing sales of 63,700 units.”