Coronavirus impact | Housing enquiries plunge to half of pre-COVID-19 levels

Ready-to-move-in homes dominate buyer preference; Bengaluru, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Noida see increased enquiries for 3/4BHKs.

Moneycontrol News

August 07, 2020 / 21:56 IST

Representative image

Employees from IT/ITeS, pharma, manufacturing industries and government employees are currently driving sales in the real estate sector which is witnessing housing enquiries at almost 50 percent of pre-COVID levels, an analysis by Anarock has revealed.

Recovery is fastest in Bengaluru, where current enquiries have reached 70 percent of the January-February period, followed by Gurugram with nearly 65 percent.

“Despite site visits far from the previous levels, the site-visit-to-closure conversion rate has increased considerably as only serious buyers are venturing out, with casual window shoppers fairly dormant currently.

"Hyderabad now sees an average of 15 percent site visits converting to sales, against 8 percent in the pre-COVID-19 period. Gurgaon, with just 4-5 percent conversions earlier, is now clocking in at 8-10 percent. Other cities report similar trends,” said Prashant Thakur, director and head – Research, ANAROCK Property Consultants.

In terms of the preferred budget range, homes priced between Rs 40 lakh and Rs 1.25 crore now attract a major chunk of the post-COVID-19 buyer enquiries. Bengaluru, Chennai, Ghaziabad and Noida are seeing maximum traction for homes in the under Rs 1 crore budget.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

Show