The average ticket size of a home in India increased by 23 percent in the April-September period this year on a year-on-year basis to Rs 1.23 crore, despite a 3 percent dip in the number of housing units sold in the same period to 2.27 lakh. Data from Anarock showed that almost all major housing markets in India, especially Bengaluru and the National Capital Region, have shown incremental-to-large increases in the average ticket size of homes sold in the April-September period this year, vis-a-vis the same period in 2023.
The average ticket size of a home sold in Bengaluru increased by 44 percent year-on-year to Rs 1.21 crore, while the same for the National Capital Region was even higher at 56 percent to Rs 1.45 crore, indicating a strong sales momentum in luxury homes, said Anuj Puri, Chairman of the Anarock Group.
The exception to this trend was the Mumbai metropolitan region, where it was flat over the same period last year at Rs 1.47 crore, even as it remains India's most expensive housing market, according to Anarock. Experts said that while home prices in a number of micro-markets in Mumbai have started flattening, developers have also been taking steps to not "price themselves out" of the market, by reducing home sizes, and in some cases, undertaking small price cuts.
"There is a possibility that builders have been decreasing flat sizes because of increase in prices - which are already much higher than in other cities. This could be a reason why prices have not risen much over the previous year. Builders may be careful to not price themselves out of the market," said Prashant Thakur, Regional Director and Head of Research at Anarock Group.
In the Mumbai Metropolitan region, developers admit that prices have started flattening across most ticket sizes as many homebuyers have baulked at sky-high prices over the past couple of years, especially in the affordable and mid-ticket categories. While premium and luxury homes have been subject to high demand, most volumes are driven by affordable and mid-ticket homes, priced between Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore.
"Overall, prices have definitely started flattening. In the luxury and premium categories, we have seen some good sales volumes, but inventory as well as total volumes remain low compared to other categories. As the affordable housing segment is not doing well, developers have had to reduce prices in some micro-markets in order to keep sales volumes up," said a large developer in Mumbai, having a presence both in the city and the outskirts.
Others say that the flattening prices may also be due to large developers heading to peripheral areas and setting up large projects, including in the affordable and mid categories.
"Nearly every large developer in Mumbai has bought large land parcels in the periphery of Mumbai, be it Mira-Bhayandar or in the eastern suburbs, and they have launched large-scale housing projects in those areas, in order to increase volumes. That also may have caused ticket sizes in some micro-markets to be flat, due to the large volumes coming in from big developers," said Gundeep Singh, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Simplease, a property management firm.
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