Home sales in April-June rise 7-fold than last year’s in Kolkata – Times of India

KOLKATA: In April-June 2022, Kolkata recorded the sales of 3,947 homes, the highest quarterly residential sales since 2016 when in July-September that year, 4,478 units were sold.
The city’s residential sales growth in April-June this year was also 583% higher than the sales clocked in the second quarter of 2021, the highest growth among all major cities. The growth in January-June 2022 was over 308% more than the first half of 2021, again the highest among the eight major cities in the country.

“Kolkata saw the highest quarterly residential sales since 2016 in the second quarter of 2022 due to affordable synergies, an extension of the stamp duty cut and return of workforce to the city as the pandemic is getting contained,” said JLL India chief economist and head of research Samantak Das.
The sharp growth comes in the backdrop of extremely low sales in the second quarter of 2021 when the second wave of Covid – the most devastating phase of the pandemic – was at its peak. The contrast would have been more stark but for the recent hike in home prices as well as increase in home loan interest owing to RBI’s Repo Rate revision that has whittled the growth in the second quarter of the year to a mere 4% against the first quarter.
The city residential real estate sector also witnessed a 7% decline in new launches. What appears to have kept the sales growth in the positive is the availability and launch of affordable residential projects and the extension of stamp duty cut till September 30, 2022.
“In Kolkata, homebuyers are mostly focused on affordable projects. In Q2 2022 as well, the preference was clear with the apartments below Rs 50 lakh having a 78% market share in sales followed by apartments between Rs 50 lakh-Rs 75 lakh with a 15% share. Maximum sales traction was seen in the east sub-market in quarterly sales, driven by the availability of affordable and mid-segment projects and proximity to the airport and IT parks,” said JLL India managing director (east) Surekha Bihani.
More than 100 units were sold in the plots and villas category during the second quarter. In Kolkata, unsold inventory declined in the quarter as the sales outpaced launches in the city. As a result, years to sale declined from 4.9 years in Q1 2022 to 3.7 years in Q2 2022.
Sales penetration of Kolkata in the first half of 2022 was 21%, identical to Bengaluru and only lower than Pune at 28%. Sales penetration defined as percentage of apartments sold versus total available inventory is a marker of how markets performed on a normalized basis, accounting for varying levels of unsold inventory across all cities.