Trends in Housing Price Index (NHB- RESIDEX)

• The housing sector contributes more than 9 per cent of national employment.
• However, the housing finance in the country is underdeveloped. The major challenges in the Indian housing markets is primarily in the low and moderate income segments. There is no lack of demand for housing but there is shortage of credit flow.

The RESIDEX was first launched in 2007 by the National Housing Bank (NHB) to provide an index of residential prices in India across cities and over time. Initially a pilot study was conducted with 2001 as base year during the period 2001- 05 to capture the trend of price movements in residential property. The pilot study covered 5 cities, namely Bengaluru, Bhopal, Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai. After that compilation of RESIDEX has been expanded to ten more cities, namely Ahmedabad, Faridabad, Chennai, Kochi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Patna, Lucknow, Pune, and Surat.

• RESIDEX is now being updated on a quarterly basis with 2007 as base year. The latest data cover 15 cities and have been updated up to June 2010 (April – June).

As per the Economic Survey, the movement in prices of residential properties has shown a mixed trend in the 15 cities covered under the NHB RESIDEX in the first half of 2010. Residential housing prices in 10 cities have shown an increasing trend compared to the base year. They are Surat, Mumbai, Lucknow, Ahmadabad, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata, Patna, Faridabad and Bhopal. However, the 5 cities that have shown correction in prices in first half of 2010 are Jaipur, Bangalore, Kochi, Delhi and Hyderabad. Jaipur has shown the maximum price correction in residential property prices.
List of Topics : Economic Survey 2010-11