Knight Frank India releases Real Estate H2 2018 Report

Knight Frank India today launched the 10th edition of its flagship half-yearly report - India Real Estate. The report presents a comprehensive analysis of the residential (across eight cities) and office (across seven cities) market performance for the period July – December 2018 (H2 2018). The report has established 2018 to be historically best performing year for the commercial office with leasing at 46.8 million square feet (mnsqft). The residential market saw upward movement in sales with total sales of residential units recorded at 182,207 units registering a 6% increase over full year 2017. Mumbai saw total new unit launches of 74,363 units in full year 2018, registering a growth of 220% YoY over a low base of 2017. The majority share of the new launches took place in H2 2018 which was recorded at 38,389 units. The residential sales for the full year of 2018 was at 63,893 units depicting a growth of 3% YoY over 2017. At the end of H1 2018, there were signs of revival in sales, but the same was punctuated around Q4 2018 (Oct – Dec 2018) due to the impact of NBFC crisis. ShishirBaijal, Chairman and Managing Director, “Mumbai has seen a significant drop of 7% in average prices in 2018, which coupled with reduced sizes of new launches, has brought down the average ticket size in the city. Consequently, homebuyers are getting a better value for their purchase than a few years ago.” ShishirBaijal, Chairman and Managing Director further added, “The commercial office transactions has witnessed a growth of 5.4 % yoy in full year 2018. Limited supply has helped the city keep rental values buoyant in 2018. Prime markets of BKC and Central Mumbai recorded very low vacancies leading to other regions experiencing higher growth rates”