The real estate market in Mumbai continues to tank, indicating that the slowdown in the sector is continuing.
February 2023 saw 9,684 property sales in the country’s financial capital, compared to 10,379 a year ago, according to data from the state government. This amounts to a 6.69% fall in the number of transactions Year-on-Year.
However, month-on-month, there was an increase of 7.58% in deals officially getting noted in government’s records with 9,001 agreements being registered in January 2023.
The 9,684 transactions in February led the Maharashtra state government earning more than Rs 1,111 crore, compared to about Rs 6,91 crore in January 2023.
However, a comparison of figures shows that property sales have surpassed the pre-pandemic levels once again. In February 2020, weeks before the lockdown, 5,927 sale agreements were registered in Mumbai, while the registrations in February 2019 were 5,320. In these years, there was also an economic slowdown because of several decisions taken by the Union government.
Post lockdown, sales have surpassed the 10,000 mark except for February 2023. In February 2021, a total of 10,172 properties were registered, while the number of registrations in February 2022 were 10,379, resulting in the state government earning a lot of revenue.
“It is normal for the last quarter of a financial year to witness few sales. Every year, one would see few bookings made in the months of January and February. One of the factors is that there are no festivals during these months,” said a real estate analyst.
There are multiple factors at play, such as rising interest rates, inflationary pressure, non-festivity period, and the fears of an impending economic slowdown, behind the consistently low year-on-year figures, according to another industry player.
In Mumbai, apartments of 500 to 1,000 sq ft size are the most sought after by homebuyers, with almost half of the purchases happening in this range. The luxury apartments are also in demand among residential purchasers. However, smaller apartments measuring less than 500 sq. ft. are not much in demand.
Overall in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), which includes Mumbai civic limits as well as the extended suburbs, the inventory increased by 7% in the previous quarter, or the third quarter of 2022-23. With 55 months of inventory overhang, this is one of the highest unsold stock in India, according to Liases Foras data.
