Top eight Indian cities see home sales improving by 7% in last quarter of 2015

While property scene in India remains stagnant, it was the sale of homes across the top eight cities of India that improved 7% year-on-year in the last quarter of 2015. Sales also rose 15% on a quarter-on-quarter basis, and discounts by builders during the festive season can be claimed as one of the main reasons, as cited by a report from Liases Foras, the property research firm.

While Mumbai and NCR markets saw an average price drop of 2% y-o-y, Bengaluru residents saw an increase of 6%. In most other markets, prices either dropped or rose marginally.

It was the metropolitan region of Mumbai that saw the best sales, growing 35% y-o-y, while in the NCR market, sales were up 8% and in Bengaluru, by 11%. Pune on the other hand saw sales dropping 18% y-o-y.

As per the report, an aggregate of 78 million sq ft of home space was sold across the top eight cities of the country, as compared to 72.9 million sq ft last year.

"It is a buyers' market today. Geographies, which were predominantly investor driven, are still suffering while areas which were inhabited and more suited to end-users are seeing improvement in sales," Pankaj Kapoor, managing director of Liases Foras, told ET. "Now the gap between affordability and pricing is reducing."

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