The realty sector in India has been tepid for past few years with low transaction volumes and stagnant price level. Weak economic scenario, recognized high price level and lack of consumer confidence in the developers with respect to project completion led to transaction volumes reducing drastically. The demonetization scheme by the Indian government had also put pressure on the market.
In addition to large unsold inventory with developers across the major Indian cities, there is a very active resale or secondary market. Indian realty market has reached a stage where inventory sold by developers in new projects is coming back into the market in huge numbers.
Let’s understand the secondary market across major Indian cities and its impact on the overall realty market.
Resale segment across cities
Affordable Homes India assessment of actively traded properties shows that resale segment forms size able component of the market. Southern cities such as Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai show a reverse trend. Fresh booking options here are more than double of resale options. Scenario in case of Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) is more balanced out. The graph below shows the city wise breakup of resale and fresh booking options (New Property) on AHI for each city.
Markets which historically have had high investor to end-user ratio (like
Gurgaon and Noida) have corresponding much higher percentage of ‘Resale’ options. Correspondingly, South Indian cities have had high end-user participation and this reflects in the ratio of ‘New’ and ‘Resale’ options.
Consumer is wary of delivery risk
AHI research shows that consumer are willing to pay more for ready-to-move (RM) options as compared to under-construction (UC) properties. They’re willing to pay a premium on completed projects rather than expose themselves to delivery risk as project delays lead to additional financial burden. This preference is reflected in the price differential between UC and RM properties. A deeper study shows that at a pan India level, RM properties command an average 7% premium over UC properties.
This also means that RM properties, whether in the primary or secondary market, have higher probability of transaction as compared to fresh bookings. The graph below shows the spread of properties by construction status as well as nature of transaction (New versus Resale).
Market impact…
On Price
• As more investors look to exit the market, the resale segment will continue to put downward pressure on price in these cities – both for existing projects and new launches
• Many investors are simply looking for an opportunity to exit a stagnant market. Under such circumstances, the sellers are likely to be more flexible with their pricing. This means buyers have RM options available in resale market at rates which might be lower than quoted rate by the developer
- As long as significant number of such options are available in the resale market, the prices in the primary market will remain under pressure
• Impact on price will be more in case if cities like Gurgaon and Noida with high number of resale options than Bengaluru or Hyderabad. In case of latter, the price will continue to be determined by demand-supply dynamics in the primary marketOn Inventory
• High number of resale options also aggravate the problem of unsold inventory as these options compete with the unsold inventory
• Large number of resale options in RM projects take the demand away from UC projects. One set of inventory is getting sold multiple times while another set with the developers remains unsoldTransaction activity in the resale segment gives depth to the primary segment. It allows investors to book profit and unlock their capital. However, in present scenario where transaction activity is low and consumers are looking for ready-to-move options, the resale segment is likely to do better than the primary market and continue to put pressure on the primary market. Given the large percentage of resale properties available in the market, this situation is likely to persist in short to medium term.