Is this the end, or start, of Mumbai property price fall?

Things on the property front in one of the world's costliest cities (when it comes to real estate prices, adjusted for per-capita income) are about to get interesting. A newspaper report today said the number of building proposals developers have made to the municipal body has risen, compared to last year. This show of confidence comes amid conflicting data that has emerged on the sector of late -- some of which suggest the city's property prices may have bottomed out while others suggest they could fall from current levels, on top of the weakness seen over the past year or so.A Times of India report today says that in the seven-month period between April and October this year, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) has received over 600 construction proposals. Compared to this, the civic body received all of 989 proposals in the last fiscal (April 2014-March 2015). Such high optimism can stem only if developers are confident that they will be able to sell the number of apartments they construct. But this comes in the wake of a well-documented, ongoing tug-of-war between homebuyers and builders has been on in the city for sometime, with the former seen as postponing their purchases in expectations of a price fall, and the latter holding on to prices and testing buyers' patience.Interestingly, the construction approvals data comes on the heels of a report by consulting firm JLL that said aggregate residential unit sales in the city in the previous four quarters rose jumped 28 percent, on the back of 26.5 percent fall in new launches -- something that can help support prices.In the report, JLL India COO Ramesh Nair attributed the rise in sales to "fence-sitters having realised that a price correction of sorts has already happened - given that the capital values have not gone up in the last two-three years despite annual inflation of 5-8 percent".But the fact remains that property prices haven't witnessed a meaningful correction, following a two-and-half-fold rise in a little under a decade -- though developers have lately resorted to means such as offering discounts or waiving off some charges as a way to reduce prices indirectly.The same ToI report quoted above says that the increased number of applications will add to the already high stock of inventory that has piled up over the past few years thanks to the slowness in sales. The number of unsold units in the city stands at over 72,000, something that will take 66 months to sell, compared to 8-12 months of inventory that builders keep in a normal market.While data show that most of the city's housing stock is incomplete rather than in ready-for-sale state, some experts say that that too is driven by wilful delays on the part of developers -- a tactic used by them to support prices.However, the high number of inventory will hit the market at some point in future, putting downward pressure on prices.