Real estate stocks hogging limelight; Sobha surges over 10%

NEW DELHI: Shares of real estate companies were trading higher in early trade on Thursday. Among the 10 components in the BSE Realty index, 9 were trading in green. The index was trading higher by 1.51 per cent around 9.40 am (IST).

Shares of Bangalore-based Sobha were trading higher by 10.10 per cent at Rs 374.90 around the same time. It was followed by Oberoi Realty (up 1.99 per cent), HDIL (up 1.89 per cent), Unitech (up 1.41 per cent) and DLF (up 1.10 per cent).

Other realty majors such as Godrej Properties, Indiabulls Real Estate, Phoenix Ltd and Omaxe were trading higher by 1.06 per cent, 1.05 per cent, 0.21 per cent and 0.15 per cent, respectively.

On the other hand, Prestige Estates Projects was trading lower by 0.56 per cent at Rs 203 in morning trade.

Ramesh Nair, CEO & Country Head, JLL India in a note said, “Individual purchasing power has improved over the last few years, with incomes rising faster than housing prices. Also, homebuyer confidence is now set to increase on the back of several sentiment-building measures.”

On a year-to-date basis, the BSE Realty index advanced 20 per cent to 1578.06 till March 22. The index was at 1318.53 on January 2 this year.

On the performance of real estate stocks, Dharmesh Kant, Head-Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Securities in a chat with ETNow said, “I believe it is more of a trading bounce which we have seen in the real estate stocks because on the ground level, activities have not picked up as far as the sales are concerned or the blended realisation is concerned. In fact, they are down by 10 to 12 per cent on an average basis across the cities.”