Real estate in Andhra Pradesh sees new growth after Covid

Real estate developers in Andhra Pradesh are providing residential apartments at much less rate than the current market price that was increasing due to rising construction cost.

Vijayawada: After a long-overdue break of Covid-19, developers are seeing rising demand for residential apartments, especially from mid-segment housing. Now, the realtors are offering residential apartments at much less rates than the current market rates that were increasing due to the rising construction cost.

“Covid-19 pandemic has affected the realty sector and only for the past couple of months, it is limping back to normalcy. To retain customers, everyone is going the extra mile. Take our case, we were selling a 2BHK apartment for Rs 42 lakh before the pandemic and today we are selling it for the same price despite an increase in the cost of construction besides offering additional facilities,” explains Srikrishna of Pavan Builders.

“We are urging the State government to cut down on registration fees like West Bengal and Odisha, which helped the realty sectors in those States. Those states have cut down registration fees to 2 per cent, while ours is around 7.5 per cent. Just imagine the demand if the registration fee is reduced,” another builder said.

Realtor R Swamy said after December 2019, real estate in Andhra was already going through a bad phase due to several problems and the pandemic worsen the market. He said that real estate is slowly recovering and they expect the government to help by regulating the construction cost.

Ramana Rao of CREDAI said, “Those who faced problems in rented houses during Covid are more eager to own their houses. I feel it could be improved further if the government resolves the issues related to capital, construction costs and GST on building material.”

CREDAI general secretary Ramesh Ankineedu said that it has becoming easier to own a house because of the easy availability of home loans in the market. “The unsold inventory which was around 9 lakh before Covid is now 7 lakh in Vijayawada and surroundings, which is a good development,” he said.

Published by- S Guru Srinkanth