Pankaj Jaju, head-real estate practice, Enam Securities told FE, “Metros and Tier II towns having a huge pipeline of projects have witnessed a 60% drop in sales of apartments in the last six months.” Selling land parcels to other builders for joint development will enable land owners to invest in buying more land bank and increasing the supply of properties, he opined.

Rohit Gera, executive director, Gera Developers aired similar views. “The real estate market in Pune has witnessed a 60% drop in sales. If inflationary trends continue till December 2008, land value will undergo a price correction of about 30% by March – April 2008,” he said.

However, this will not impact consumers as developers will not charge a premium from them. Instead, as Gera revealed, “Large, medium and small developers have already started offering land to us for joint development. We are, in fact, waiting for price discounts at which we can borrow land from them for constructing their projects.”

Industry experts believe that real estate prices in Navi Mumbai and Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) are expected to shoot up further by about 10-15% within the next six months if developers are not able to complete their projects on time.

The scene is not too different in Bangalore and Chennai, where the real estate market has started witnessing a rise in labour costs, mainly due to a crunch in the availability of labour, sources in Puravankara Projects told.

Raw material input costs for construction constitute 40% of total project cost. Since input costs are expected to rise further, the real estate market will witness a further dip in sales of apartments across the country.