Mid-to-affordable homes feel high mortgage rate pinch

On the heels of rising mortgage rates, India's real estate sector anticipates a slowdown in growth across cheap homes priced below Rs 50 lakhs and mid-segment homes priced between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore. According to various developers and analysts, the ultra luxury market, which includes residential units worth more over Rs 1 crore, is still on a roll. Growth in sales of cheap to mid-range homes is predicted to decelerate to 10-15% in 2023 versus 2022. Growth was stronger last year, at 35-40%, compared to Covid-affected 2021. Super luxury property sales are predicted to rise rapidly due to a lack of supply and buyers' high personal wealth. For example, in February 2023, Mumbai saw a new peak in income collections from property registration, reaching Rs 1,102 crore. It was a 79% increase over February 2022 collections last year (Rs 615 crore). As revenue increased, property registrations decreased by 8% to 9,511 in February 2023 from 10,379 in February 2018. This (rise in registration revenue while actual registrations fall) definitely implies that sales of big-ticket price homes (luxury homes) had a considerable upward movement, Chairman of the ANAROCK Group, Anuj Puri. According to ANAROCK Research, out of the 3.65 lakh units sold across the top seven cities in 2022, around 18% (approx. 65,680 units) were in the luxury category with prices above 1.5 crore. In comparison, just 7% (17,740 units) of the total 2.61 lakh units sold in 2019 were classified as luxury. According to another developer, DLF's recent enormous success with its Gurugram offers demonstrates that there is a shortage of appropriate super-luxury home supplies by high-grade branded developers. This buyer sector is unaffected by economic downturns and employment market volatility because most are already well-capitalised. Moreover, most of these buyers are using personal wealth or cash (free money) for purchases, said Vivek Rathi, Director – Research, Knight Frank India. According to Knight Frank's data, roughly 45 percent of such high net worth buyers are cash buyers - utilising their own funds rather than loans. According to Prashant Thakur, Senior Director and Head of Research at ANAROCK Group, early indications show a 5-10% drop in property sales in the first two months of 2023 compared to the previous quarter as of February end (October-December 2022). Closures are taking longer currently. Formerly, a site inspection to transaction conclusion may take up to 65 days. However, the deadline has now been greatly extended. IT centres such as Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Pune would experience the greatest impact on demand. Thakur stated. CY2022 was a strong year in terms of launches and inventory levels are currently up. As a result, unsold stock is also up by 4-5 per cent, market sources said. Also Read CERC appoints Jishnu Baruah as a new chairman NCLAT dismisses HDFC's appeal against sale of IL&FS BKC property