With COVID-19 cases having already on the rise in India and with the whole nation in Lockdown, there is no sector of the economy which has not been severely hit by this crisis. Real estate sector has also taken a major hit with construction of projects on hold as costs keep piling .Most experts and industry insiders agree that the lockdown will certainly have an adverse impact on economic activity across sectors including real estate.
Mr. Nayan Raheja, Executive Director, Raheja developers, feels sales and construction are badly impacted, however now the sales in ready to move and lower and midsegment are catching its natural pace where in the sales are satisfactory and the demand for ready to move and farmhouses will be on rise.
“This situation may remain same till lockdown is in effect but will have lasting effect on economy as project deliveries shall be delayed. However, since real estate is the only long term and stable investment asset compared to the other volatile options, we anticipate a steady investment growth once things get back to normal,” he says. Now the sales will be more through online platforms vis-à-vis, several renowned builders have ready cloaked in good sales numbers.
According to Dhruv Agarwal, Group CEO, Housing.com, Makaan.com and PropTiger.com, the dip in traffic is now visible on all their platforms. “In order to mitigate the impact, we have come out with various schemes for builders and brokers to encourage them to continue to advertise on Housing.com so that they can build their customer pipelines even when the market is slow. We have also launched video calls, virtual walkthroughs and other innovative visualization products to enable consumers to make property purchase decisions in the comfort of their living rooms, while they are unable to venture out of their homes,” he says.
However, Manoj Gaur, MD, Gaurs Group and Chairman, feels that while the sales are impacted, it is temporary phenomena. “We will know the exact impact only when things calm down. In any case second half of March and April are generally not great from sales perspective.
Also, at the moment it is more important that people remain safe and healthy,” he says. “But as the fall in the sector is nowhere compared to other asset classes like equity, gold etc.
We hope real estate will again emerge as the preferred destination for both investors and end-users,” he concludes.
In the current survey it has been noticed that even housewives are more keen on putting money into real-estate rather than gold or equity due to its volatile nature. In real-estate people have the tangible class of asset which will give more comfort.
I personally feel that residential sector will be revived first followed by the commercial sector where in the delivery is beyond 2 years from now.