Business conglomerate Shapoorji Pallonji’s housing platform Joyville has clocked nearly three-fold jump in its sales booking at Rs 450 crore during the first half of this fiscal year on strong demand for mid-income residential properties, a top company official said.
Joyville, which is a Rs 1,240 crore platform established by Shapoorji Pallonji, ADB, IFC and Actis, had sold properties worth Rs 160 crore in the corresponding period of the last fiscal year.
In an interview with PTI, Joyville Shapoorji Housing Managing Director Sriram Mahadevan said, “the real estate market is doing well because of improved market sentiments driven by progress in the vaccination programme.”
Moreover, COVID-19 cases have also come down significantly, he added.
“We have sold over 700 apartments for around Rs 450 crore in the first six months of this financial year. The sales bookings have grown almost three times compared to the year-ago period,” Mahadevan told PTI.
Sales have been good in all four cities, but projects in Pune have performed exceedingly well, he said, while expressing confidence about maintaining the momentum.
Mahadevan attributed various factors for growth in its sales bookings including “positive consumer sentiment, improved affordability of consumers on higher income and stable housing prices, low interest on home loans and more importance of home ownership during the pandemic”.
Joyville platform had sold properties worth around Rs 1,100 crore in the last financial year, double from the previous year. The financial year 2020-21 was “the best year” for Joyville despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
Talking about the overall housing market, Mahadevan highlighted that the share of the mid-income segment (Rs 40 lakh to Rs 1 crore), the price bracket in which Joyville operates, has reached nearly 50 per cent.
He also noted that market share of branded developers, both listed and unlisted, has increased to 40 per cent from 18 per cent earlier, because of the trust factor.
On business expansion, Mahadevan said he said the company would launch new phases of existing projects in the coming months.
So far, six housing projects have been launched under the Joyville platform — three in Pune and one each in Mumbai, Kolkata and Gurugram.
“We have handed over 700 flats in our projects much ahead of the RERA timeline. We are planning to handover over 1,600 apartments in the next one year,” Mahadevan said.
Earlier this year, Joyville had announced plans to invest around Rs 400 crore on acquisition of 3-4 land parcels in Mumbai and Pune to expand its presence.
Apart from this platform, Shapoorji Pallonji group firm Shapoorji Pallonji Real Estate has a development pipeline of over 80 million sq ft.
Shapoorji Pallonji Real Estate and Joyville are not listed entities.
Recently, property consultant PropTiger said that housing sales might rise by 15-20 per cent annually during the 2021 calendar year, across eight major cities on pent up demand and low-interest rates on home loans.
During the 2020 calendar year, sales had plunged 47 per cent to 1,82,639 units from 347,586 units in 2019, mainly because of strict nationwide lockdown imposed in March last year to control the COVID pandemic, it said.
Source : Business-Standard
