Nearly 476,530 residential units were sold across seven major cities in 2023, highest in the last 10 years, a new report released on Thursday showed. 2023 saw a 31% growth over 2022, which had seen total sales of 364,870 units across the top seven cities, according to the report by Anarock Property Consultants.
The decade’s previous peak was seen in 2022, after 2014, when about 343,000 units were sold, it said. Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) witnessed the highest sales of about 153,870 units, followed by Pune with about 86,680 units. The two western markets together led residential sales in 2023, according to the report.
“2023 has been phenomenal for the Indian housing sector despite global headwinds, rising domestic property prices and interest rate hikes over the first half of this year,” Anarock chairman Anuj Puri said.
Q4 2023 maintained the strong momentum set during the entire year with more than 127,370 units sold during the period.
National Capital Region (NCR) was seen as deliberately restricting new supply during the year, to about 36,735 units, though it witnessed extremely healthy sales of about 65,625 units. “With this cautious approach, NCR reduced its unsold inventory stock by a very significant 23% annually,” Puri said.
Demand is likely to remain unaffected in 2024 even with average prices likely appreciating by 8-10% across the top seven cities. The unchanged home loan rates in the second half of 2023 helped maintain the overall positive consumer sentiment, the report said.
“While housing price hikes over the year did give rise to demand concerns, the unchanged home loan rates helped keep sales on an even keel,” Puri said.
Luxury housing demand increased exponentially as homebuyers continued to look for bigger livable spaces after the pandemic. The new luxury supply addition across the top 7 cities in 2023 was up five times when compared with 2018. There is no reason to expect that luxury housing demand will taper off in 2024, the report added.