Covid hits housing supply, launches down 59% in April-June

The economic uncertainty caused by the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic has forced real estate developers in India to adopt a more cautious approach towards spending, which is reflected in new supply numbers for the April-June period (Q2) of 2021, said a PropTiger report.

A total of 21,839 new units were launched in these markets during April-June, lower by 59 per cent compared to the launches in January-March.

However, when compared to the same period last year, new launches show an increase of 74 per cent.

"This remarkable increase in launches in Q2 over the same period the previous year could be explained by the fact that during a large period of Q2CY2020, India continued to remain under a national lockdown that adversely hit the economy, forcing Asia's third largest economy to slip into recession in 2020," said the report.

"This forced liquidity-starved real estate builders in the country to tread highly cautiously during April-June 2020," it said.

With most states announcing relaxations in travel movements amid a dip in the number of daily new infections, the month of June has seen a pick-up in demand in real estate, showed the report by PropTiger.com.

According to the report titled Real Insight (Residential) - April-June (Q2) 2021, half of the sales in the April-June quarter of 2021 took place in June itself as states started to open up and remove restrictions.

While demand and supply both remained adversely impacted during the first two months of the quarter, a period when most states remained in partial lockdown to contain the virus spread, home sales and new launch numbers started to pick up in June, with the gradual lifting of restrictions, it showed.

"Due to the challenging situation during the April-June quarter in 2021, when infections and casualties caused by the coronavirus hit a peak before subsiding towards the end of May, both demand and supply were hit during the first two months when most states put in place various restrictions and lockdowns to curb the spread of the virus," said Dhruv Agarwala, Group CEO, Housing.com, Makaan.com & PropTiger.com.

However, some ground on both the numbers was covered during the month of June, when states started to open up, he added.