Mumbai, Oct 25 (IANS): Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and Pune may witness improved housing sales in this festive season, compared with the other cities, according to a report by Anarock Property Consultants.

Citing the trend in the past five years, the Anarock report said that MMR and Pune are likely to witness the highest growth in housing sales during the ongoing festive quarter -- by 36 per cent and 34 per cent -- respectively.

In MMR, housing sales in Q3 2020 stood at 9,200 units, and 4,850 units in Pune. These two leading western markets have a major edge over their counterparts elsewhere during the festive season.

Anuj Puri, Chairman, Anarock Property Consultants said: "This year, innovative deals and discounts by developers coincide with unprecedented low home loan interest rates and the Maharashtra government's limited-period stamp duty incentive -- 2 per cent up to December 2020 and 3 per cent between January-March 2021."

The overall financial benefit amounts to a reduction of anywhere between 7-15 per cent on the total property cost," he said.

The report noted that usually, the festive (October to December) quarter sees housing sales across cities improve due to the perceived auspiciousness of this period.

It noted that a 5-year analysis of quarterly housing sales growth in the top seven cities during the festive quarter against the preceding quarter shows that the western markets of MMR and Pune consistently stayed on top.

In 2015, while the other five cities saw sales decline in the range of 5-18 per cent in fourth quarter over the previous quarter, MMR and Pune recorded a 30 per cent quarterly growth each.

In 2016 and 2017, while fourth quarter sales plummeted q-o-q in all cities due to demonetisation, RERA and GST, MMR and Pune saw the least decline. However, the decline in sales in these two cities was lower than the magnitude of fall in the other cities, including NCR, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad.

Further, in Q4 2018, MMR saw sales rise by 11 per cent and Pune by 7 per cent on a quarterly basis. In 2019, MMR and Pune saw housing sales increase by 7 per cent and 10 per cent respectively in the festive quarter over the previous one, the report said.