As the National Housing Bank (NHB) rightly noted recently, in most of Indian cities prices of new homes are expected to come down. Nearly five lakh apartments are expected to be delivered by builders this year, say reports. So, if you have been waiting to buy a home, this could be the right time for some bargain hunting. As per the NHB Residential Housing Index Residex, 22 of the 26 cities in India have seen a decline in home prices between 1 per cent and 5 per cent in the April to June quarter.
A property research firm Liases Foras also says the widening demand supply gap will help prices fall further. Property prices have begun to soften around the country and builders, under pressure, have started to offer discounts as high as 10 per cent in some cases.
Even better opportunity is emerging in the secondary-resale market where over-leveraged investors who had picked up properties over the last few years are willing to offload their inventory at discount pricess as high as 30 per cent. The advantage for a home buyer is that several of these apartments that investors are selling in cities like Gurgaon, Noida, Mumbai, Bangalore and others, will be delivered in 2013, so the wait for their dream home could become much shorter.
For want of funds and the fear of a further correction in prices, many investors, who are already sitting on ready-to-move-in properties, are also disposing off their inventory at discounts.
