Realty stocks snap 7-day losing streak on Godrej Properties, Prestige's strong Q3 biz updates: What lies ahead?

Real estate stocks snap 7-day losing streak

• Nifty Realty index rose over 2% intraday after a seven-session losing streak
• Prestige Estates led gains with 30 percent YoY pre-sales growth in Q3 FY26
• IT layoffs have dampened luxury housing demand in key urban centers

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The shares of real estate companies rose in trade on January 16, pushing the Nifty Realty index into the green after a seven-session losing streak.

The Nifty Realty index gained more than 2 percent to hit intraday high of 867.65 on Friday, before paring some gains. The index closed 0.35 percent higher at 853.

Top realty gainers:

Prestige Estates were the top gainer on the index, rising nearly 2 percent to trade at Rs 1,524.10 apiece. This comes after the company announced that it has recorded pre-sales worth Rs 4,183.6 crore during the October-December quarter of the ongoing financial year 2026, marking a 30 percent YoY growth.

For the April-December period, the company’s pre-sales surged 122 percent YoY to Rs 22,327.3 crore, marking the highest sales ever achieved by the company and surpassing its previous full-year peak sales.

The firm also announced the launch of Evergreen at Prestige Raintree Park in Whitefield, Bengaluru.

Macrotech Developers (Lodha), Oberoi Realty and Godrej Properties shares followed, rising around 1 percent each. Godrej Properties on January 15 announced that it has emerged as the largest listed residential real estate developer in India in 2025 for the second consecutive year, based on key operating metrics of booking value and cash collections.

The firm sold 16,428 homes with a total saleable area of 27.26 million sq. ft. in 2025, supported by 41 successful project launches across India. Its booking value grew 19 percent YoY to Rs 34,171 crore with a CAGR of nearly 44 percent between 2022 and 2025.

Bucking the trend, Anant Raj, DLF, Brigade Enterprises and Phoenix Mills shares were trading in the red with marginal losses. Sobha shares however fell more than 1 percent.

Are IT layoffs behind the recent downturn?

Indian IT sector has seen mass layoffs last year, which have now spilled over to this year. According to analysts, the IT layoffs have impacted housing demand in key areas, thereby impacting the stocks. IT layoffs are likely to be the major reason for the low demand in the luxury segment of urban centers like Bangalore and Hyderabad as they will be discouraging the high-income buyers, said Shashank Gupta, Director, RPS Group.

He added that mid-to-premium housing sales, which have already dropped 15 percent year-on-year, will continue to be affected negatively as the professionals will not be willing to upgrade, opting instead to rent amid such job uncertainties.

"The market has whispered to the executives with Nifty Realty down by 20% from the peaks and talking about the disruption posed by the AI, which also indicates that 30% of the IT jobs that are luxury demand would get stifled due to the automation by 2027. The stock corrections that are expected to be around 5-7% are dependent on the RBI rate cuts and policy revamps that could fuel the market by the second quarter of 2026," the analyst said.

Keshav Mangla, GM Business Development at Forteasia Realty, cited Anarock data to explain that financial tech layoffs of more than 1 lakh since 2024 have already resulted in a 12 percent drop in the demand for Tier-1 cities, thus resulting in developers' difficulties in managing cash flows and having to sell off their inventory.

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