Chennai Tops in Housing Price Gains: Report

Though the housing market overall in the country has remained sluggish over the past year, it has shown sharp gains in some cities. Chennai topped the list of price gains among major cities, according to National Housing Bank.

In Chennai, residential housing prices rose over 17 per cent during the April-June 2014 quarter, as compared to the same quarter a year earlier. This is according to the National Housing Bank's Residex index, which tracks the movement in prices of residential properties on a quarterly basis. It now covers 26 major cities in the country.

Chennai was followed by Ahmedabad (14.5 per cent) and Surat (13.38 per cent) in terms of price appreciation. The other three cities that saw double-digit gains in property prices in a year are Hyderabad (13 per cent), Kolkata (11.54 per cent) and Pune (10 per cent).

National Housing Bank's Residex tracks the price trends for residential properties based upon the transaction data received from Central Registry of Securitisation Asset Reconstruction and Security Interest of India (CERSAI).

Despite Chennai and Hyderabad seeing double-digit price gains, prices showed stagnant or declining trend in major southern cities. Residential property prices were stagnant in Bangalore and Kochi on a yearly basis while in Coimbatore it declined 1 per cent. In Vijayawada, prices fell over 6 per cent.

The maximum price fall was seen in Meerut (15.8 per cent), followed by Chandigarh (8.3 per cent), Jaipur (7 per cent), Ludhiana (6 per cent)

In Delhi prices fell 3 per cent while in Mumbai it rose over 5 per cent.