According to Knight Frank’s latest report in residential real estate, “Since the pandemic, homebuyer preference for bigger homes in peripheral markets has worked in favour of Noida and enquiries for gated communities have been on the rise. Fence-sitters, who were earlier reluctant to live far away from the city, are showing interest in purchasing homes in far-flung sectors closer to the Yamuna Expressway, such as Sector 142, Sector 143 and Sector 150. Demand for residential homes remained strong for Sector 43, Sector 50 and Sector 75 too.”
On the other hand, the average property prices did not show any rise; however, the report says that “some sectors in Greater Noida have seen a marginal softening of prices in the range of 1-2% YoY”. In the review era, new launches changed, but the sector still has a long way to go to regain its pre-COVID-19 momentum. Noida’s percentage of the total launches in the NCR fell to 28 per cent in H1 2021. There has been a scarcity of new projects in this sector, with few places on developers’ radar as potential development corridors. Homebuyers continue to be drawn to areas like Noida Extension and the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway, skewing the supply of new residential inventory in these areas.
Greater Noida’s share in the overall sales remained steady at 34% in H1 2021. Greater Noida has witnessed traction in the past few months for ready-to-move-in homes. With a gradual return to normalcy, optimism is returning in this market for ready to move in inventory with a price tag of more than INR 5 million, says the report. “Because nothing is more important than one’s well-being, and people are more aware of this than ever before, there is a tendency toward migrating to larger spaces. The figures show that the emergence is taking place. Noida’s well-developed road network allows for speedier commuting, resulting in increasing interest in the real estate market,” says Vijay Verma, CEO, Sunworld Group.
Looking at the residential sales landscape of NCR, the percentage share of micro-market absorption has largely remained unwavering as compared to H1 2020 with Noida and Greater Noida combine ruling the sales graph; the sales share of Noida and Greater Noida was 49% in H1 2021 compared to 53% in H1 2020. Yash Miglani, MD, Migsun Group says, “The region is popular among end-users, particularly among the working class, and sales have been fantastic. Greater Noida West has experienced a lot of people and sales activity since the 2020 lockdown. Infrastructural upgrades, such as extended subway, road connectivity, and announcements like Jewar Airport, are also supporting the development.”
According to the report, the downward trend of unsold inventory witnessed since 2016, continued in H1 2021. With a 12% YoY decline in the latest period in Noida and 16% decline in Greater Noida, the two regions have emerged as buyers’ choice in NCR. “The success of Noida can be attributed to its image among the middle class; during the pandemic, the working class learned the importance of a real estate asset and began hunting for one in this city. In the following months, we expect a big response in the residential market, as the momentum is unlikely to subside due to the continued availability of low home loan rates,” says Harvinder Singh Sikka, MD, Sikka Group.
