Pune Market Gradually Returning To Pre-COVID levels

Pune, January 25, 2021: Post witnessing stunted growth ascribed to a stressed environment due to COVID-induced lockdown, the real estate market in Pune saw an increase in supply of housing units on the back of new project launches during the year-end festive season, shows Magicbricks PropIndex report Q4. The supply which fell by 7% in Q3 2020, was seen rising to 33% in Q4 2020 amid a positive consumer outlook.

Various factors such as low home loan rates, reduced stamp duty, tax benefits, and discounts and freebies by developers were influential in improving the home-buyer sentiment and raising the price index by 0.3%, which saw a decline of 0.2% in the Q3 2020.

It is interesting to note that demand is shifting towards bigger homes post realizing the importance of bigger homes amid the lockdown and the rise in Work-From-Home (WFH) trend. 2 BHKs continued to be the most searched property configuration. The demand for larger configuration homes is expected to stay in the near future as WFH in theIT/ITeS sector is being extended to a longer time period than anticipated, developers have also responded well to this trend by increasing the supply of 3 BHK homes.

Commenting on the PropIndex report, Sudhir Pai, CEO, Magicbricks, said, “With uncertainties around the economy and jobs now stabilising, we are witnessing signs of growth in the real estate sector as well.  The economy has also stopped shrinking since October 2020 and now we are seeing a V-shaped recovery in the real estate sector. There are predictions of net positive GDP growth for the ‘Oct-Dec 2020’ quarter at 0.1% and rebound growth at 10% for FY 2021-22, making it surpass pre-COVID levels. With impetus from the government in the form of stamp duty cuts in some states and first-home buyer incentives, buyer demand is expected to stay at elevated levels in 2021.”

Additionally, Magicbricks’ data shows rise in QoQ demand for ‘INR 5,000-10,000 per sqft’ segment, which grew from 66% in Q3 to 74% in Q4 2020. Viman Nagar, Yerwada, Hinjewadi, Baner, and Pimple Nilakh are the major localities in the segment, which benefited from better civic amenities and retail facilities along with proximity to industrial and IT hubs. Further, with secondary market sources reporting around 1 million sqft of office space lease renewals across the city in just 4 months, Pune commercial market is set to return to pre-Covid levels soon.