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* 6,784 units registered in August 2021, 6,241 new home sales

* Homes costing INR 1 Cr or less grow by 6.9 times since April 2021

* August 2021 registrations equaling 10 - years best for the month of August

* 4% of registrations were registered by women home buyers

Mumbai : Knight Frank India, the leading real estate consultancy in the country, noted that Mumbai BMC region (i.e. Churchgate to Dahisar and Colaba to Mulund) recorded property registrations of 6,784 units in August 2021, registering a growth of 157% YoY compared August 2020. The registrations for August 2021 were also 16% higher compared pre-pandemic period of August 2019.

Overwhelmingly, 92% of the registered homes were fresh sales amounting to 6,241 units that were sold in the month of August 2021. New home sales grown from 53% in July 2021, 42% in June 2021 while in April was as low as 7%. The percentage contribution of women buyers to the total registrations remained steady at approximately 4% totalling to 271 registrations.

Table 1: Property Registrations (2020-2021)

Table 2: Property registrations in the month of August

Table 3: Fresh sales during April 2021 - July 2021

Delving deeper into the property registrations data, it was noted that 92% of registrations in August 2021 were from new residential sales concluded in the month, recording a sharp improvement compared to 53% in July, 42% in June 2021, 29% during May 2021 and 7% during April 2021. This is in-line with the historical periods where the gap between date of filing of documents and date of registrations was negligible. The headline registration numbers for April-July period are elevated as homebuyers who brought their apartments in 2021 during the lower stamp duty window had a leeway of 4 months until 31st July 2021 to register their property.

At 6,241 units, the number of new apartments sold (fresh sales) during August 2021 were 19% higher compared to 5,244 units in July 89% higher compared to 3,300 units sold in June 2021, 302% higher compared to 1,554 units sold in May 2021 and 780% higher compared to 710 units sold during April 2021.

4% share of women homebuyers in new sales in August 2021

The share of women homebuyers in new registrations has been in low single digits since April 2021 despite the State Government’s intent to increase home ownership amongst women by offering a stamp duty concession of 100 bps or 1%.

Table 4: Share of apartments registered in the name of women during April 2021 - Aug 2021

The concessions offered to women homebuyers must be enhanced further as the number of apartments registered in the name of women has not risen to a meaningful proportion. The State Government can experiment with a further 100 bps reduction in stamp duty rates for women homebuyers and see if the registrations pick up as the savings of 200 bps stamp duty savings during window of January 2021 to March 2021 had witnessed strong sales. This will not just help the cause of increasing home ownership amongst women but also aid the sector.

Table 4: Ticket size wise break up of units registered

Table 5: Apartments sold in the “INR 1 Cr and below” category

In absolute terms the number of apartments sold in the “INR 1 Cr and below” category in August 2021 has grown by 6.9 times compared to April 2021.

Chart 1: State Government’s revenue collection from stamp duty is nearing pre-pandemic levels

The State Government collections from stamp duty for August 2021 has crossed the INR 400 Crore mark which is close to the 2019 monthly average while collections were over 4 times year on year when compared to August 2020.

Shishir Baijal, Chairman & Managing Director, Knight Frank India, “Real estate sales in Mumbai have bounced back strongly after the pandemic. Going by the rise in fresh sales during the month which has consistently grown since April along with the significant rise of sales of homes priced upto INR 1 Cr, we can safely say that the real demand has put the woes of the second wave behind. With the upcoming festive season and the expected economic revival along with improved vaccinations, we expect this sales momentum to grow stronger. We believe that the time is ripe for the State Government to offer further concessions to improve homeownership especially amongst women to provide fillip to this category of homebuyers.”

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