Land deals by builders jump over three-fold in eight cities in Jan-Sept 2022: Report

NEW DELHI: Real estate developers are aggressively looking to expand their business with
revival in demand, resulting in a sharp rise in the number of land deals which jumped over threefold to 68 across eight major cities during January-September this year, according to property
consultant Anarock.
Anarock has compiled the land transactions, which include both outright purchases by
developers and also joint development agreements (JDAs).
At least 68 separate land deals, accounting for 1,656 acres, were closed in the first nine months
of 2022 across top eight cities, as against just 20 land deals for 925 acres in the corresponding
period of last year, it said.

Out of the 68 deals in January-September period of 2022, as many as nine were either JDAs or
on revenue sharing basis. The remaining deals were outright purchase.
Land, the most precious finite resource amid rapid urbanisation, has been seeing increased
action after the COVID-19 pandemic, Anarock noted.
To encash the surge in housing demand compared to 2020 and 2021, all major real estate firms
like Macrotech Developers, Godrej Proerties and Prestige Estates are buying land parcels
outright and also entering into partnership with landlords.
“In terms of land area transacted, Hyderabad has seen the biggest land transactions so far this
year,” said Santhosh Kumar, Vice Chairman of Anarock Group.
“In terms of total number of land deals, MMR (Mumbai Metropolitan Region) clocked the highest
number of deals; while the total area transacted was unspectacular, one must also consider the
steep prices in this land-starved city,” he added.
Of the total land deals during January-September of this year, there were 40 deals comprising
590.54 acres for development of residential projects, while four land deals were for industrial
and logistics parks covering 147 acres.
For development of data centres, four land deals were struck for 118.8 acres.
Five deals for 115 acres of land were struck for mixed-use projects and another four
transactions involving 25.73 acres for commercial projects.
Eleven land deals, comprising 658.94 acres, were for development of retail and other real estate
assets.
With some of the larger deals, there is still ambiguity about the type of development that will
take place there, the consultant said.
Among cities, the Delhi-NCR property market saw 16 land deals comprising 233.83 acres during
January-September this year.
This included nine deals for a total of 197 acres in Gurugram, and seven in Delhi, Faridabad,
and Noida.
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region witnessed 17 deals accounting for 198.62 acres.
Number of land deals in Bengaluru stood at nine, comprising 223.2 acres.
In Hyderabad, there were only seven land deals but the total area was high at 769.25 acres.
Pune witnessed eight land deals totalling 123.7 acres, while Chennai saw seven deals totalling
92.21 acres.

Ahmedabad saw three land deals comprising 9.6 acres during the first nine months of this
calendar year.
Housing demand has revived strongly after the slowdown in the last two years because of the
COVID-19 pandemic. So builders, especially large ones, are looking to launch more projects.
As per the Anarock data, housing sales across seven major cities increased to 2,72,709 units
during January-September this year from 1,45,651 units in the corresponding period of the
previous year.
The January-September figure of this calendar year is higher than the 2,61,358 units sold during
the entire 2019 calendar year.