Residential Sales at New Highs in Top 7 Cities as Demand Shifts To Branded Developers: ANAROCK

Mumbai / October 10, 2024: With residential sales creating a new peak across the top 7 cities in the last one year, buyer demand is heavily in favour of branded developers. The top eight listed players certainly have little to complain about, with remarkable sales seen across their projects, ANAROCK Property Consultants said in a press statement.

Dr. Prashant Thakur, Regional Director & Head – Research, ANAROCK Group, said, “An analysis of the financial data of the top eight listed developers by ANAROCK shows a significant rise in their sales revenue, and their net debt has reduced by over 54% from the previous peak in FY 2019. The net debt of the top eight players collectively reduced to approx. Rs 20,808 crore by Q1 FY 2025, from over Rs 44,817 crore in Q4 FY 2019 (when the overall debt of these listed players was at its peak). 

The top 8 listed players – Sobha Ltd., Puravankara Ltd., Prestige Estates, Kolte Patil, Mahindra Lifespace Developers Ltd., Godrej Properties Ltd., DLF Limited, and Lodha Developers (Macrotech) – regularly report their cost of debt in investor presentations. 

The top developers to see a significant debt reduction between Q4 FY 2019 and Q1 FY 2025 are DLF Ltd. (165+% decline by gaining surplus cash of Rs 2,896 crore) and Kolte Patil (107% reduction by gaining surplus cash of Rs 37 crore). Lodha reduced its net debt by 83% from Q4 FY2019 to Q1 FY25. 

“Some players even saw their net debt rise in this period,” says Dr. Thakur. “However, these developers also saw a high jump in their booking values over the year. The rise in debt is mainly due to their aggressive expansion across the geographies – many have been on a land buying spree across cities.”

The net debt decline of the other players is due to the significant jump seen in the booking values over the last few quarters. According to their investor presentations, FY 2019 saw these top 8 listed players with a collective booking value of Rs 27,144 crore; in FY2024, it increased to approx. Rs 90,573 crore, thereby rising by a whopping 234% in this period.

Interestingly, the first quarter of this financial year (Q1 FY2025) alone saw their collective booking value at Rs 26,832 crore – nearly 99% of the total value clocked in entire FY 2019, and 30% of the total value in the whole of FY 2024. This is significant, considering that there are three more quarters left in the ongoing financial year.