Knight Frank, India’s leading real estate consultancy, noted that the year 2023 began on a positive note for Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA)’s residential property market as there was a robust increase in apartments registered in January. KMA witnessed the registration of 4,178 residential sales agreements in January 2023, which is also the highest compared to the registrations witnessed in the first month of the calendar year in the past four years.
There is a double digit increase in both year-on-year (YoY) and month-on-month (MoM) basis in the documents registered in this month after a slow registration activity period in November 2022 and December 2022. The extension of the stamp duty rebate for a sixth time till September 30th, 2023, as part of the West Bengal state budget announcement last week, will benefit all stakeholders - homebuyers, developers and the government.
Since the initial stamp duty cut announcement in July 2021, more than 80,000 residential properties have been registered in the city in the period July 2021 – January 2023. The 18 months period prior to the introduction of the stamp duty rebate saw registrations of only 47,317 units.
It is therefore important to note that there is a 70% upswing in the period of stamp duty rebate (July 2021 – January 2023) versus the preceding period (January 2020 – June 2021). The data pertains to transactions in both primary (fresh sale) and secondary (re-sale) markets for all residential apartments for all periods.
In line with past trends, apartments in the size range of 47-92 sq m (501-1,000 sq ft) accounted for 47% of the total registrations in January 2023. The share of bigger unit sizes of more than 93 sq m (more than 1,001 sq ft) was noted at 29% in this month. Smaller units of up to 46 sq m (up to 500 sq ft) comprised 24% share of the total. The share of this size category has shrunk from 27% in January 2022 to 24% of the total registrations in the current period.
The North Zone continued to lead the micro-market tally as it garnered the highest registration share of 36% in January 2023. Though at par with January 2022 in terms of share of the overall apartment registration pie, there is a 72% increase in the number of sales deeds registered in this micro market on a YoY basis. The South Zone garnered the second highest share of 34% in the registrations in KMA, which also represents a twofold increase in registration volume over January 2022. Rajarhat also noticed its share grow from 7% of total apartment registrations in January 2022 to 9% in the current period.
