By CL Jose
Prices grew 20 pc in Kochi, Chennai witnessed 4 pc decline
KOCHI/February 28-2022: And yet another first for Kerala; Kochi, the state’s busiest city as well as its commercial capital, has recorded the highest growth in house prices among the major Indian cities.
The ranking has been released by Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which has computed the All India House Price Index (HPI) for the third quarter (Q3) ending December 31, 2021.
While Kochi logged a smart 19.8 per cent year-on-year growth in house prices during the period, Chennai witnessed a 4.1 per cent decline, thus exposing a too wide trend between cities.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report said the All India HPI recorded an annual growth (y-o-y) of 3.1 per cent in Q3:2021-22 as compared with 2.4 per cent in the previous quarter (sequential) and 2.2 per cent a year ago.
The statistics on the house prices have been gathered from the housing registration authorities in 10 major cities – Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, and Mumbai.
The last more than two decade saw Kochi’s housing sector turning towards apartments driven by reputed developors such as Asset Developers, SkyLine, National Builders, Puravankara, Abad, etc, and more recently by much larger players including DLF, Sobha Ltd and Tata Realty.
Delhi – highest sequential growth
On a sequential basis or quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) basis too, all India HPI registered an increase of 3.1 per cent in Q3.
While Chennai and Kanpur recorded sequential decline in HPI during the current quarter (Q3), the index has registered growth for the remaining 8 cities with Delhi recording the highest sequential growth of 9.5 per cent during Q3.
A recent Knight Frank India report had said that housing prices in India are likely to rise 5 per cent during the 2022 calendar year on improved demand.
In its 2022 Outlook Report, the property consultant said while 2021 was mostly impacted by the volatility due to the pandemic, 2022 may prove to be a more stable year for the sector both for commercial as well as the residential sector.
After facing a series of structural reforms like demonetisation, GST and RERA during the last decade, the pandemic arrived as another blow for the real estate sector.
“Our decadal analysis of the 2011-2021 period indicates many of the supply and demand side factors have started putting upward pressure on house prices and as a result, we project around 5 per cent price increase in 2022,” Knight Frank added.
