New Delhi, Mar 26 (IANS): As the real estate sector comes out of the pandemic lows, launch of new homes in the top seven cities in the country increased to 51 per cent during January-March, 2021 on year on year (YoY) to 62,130 homes, according to an Anarock report.

During the same quarter last year, a total of 41,220 units were launched, it said.

The key cities contributing to new unit launches in Q1 2021 were Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Hyderabad, Pune, and Bengaluru which together accounting for 79 per cent of supply addition.

In MMR, around 14,820 units were launched - a significant increase of nearly 41 per cent over Q1 2020. Over 66 per cent of the new supply was added in the sub Rs 80 lakh budget range, showed that data of Q1 released by Anarock Property Consultants.

Anuj Puri, Chairman of Anarock Property Consultants said: "Egged on by buoyant sales and enthusiastic consumer sentiment in the October-December period, developers launched several new projects in this quarter - with some spill-over from the pandemic-dampened 2020 pipeline."

"MMR and Pune were the most active in this quarter since the limited-period stamp duty cuts and other sops and discounts substantially reduced acquisition cost," Puri said.

In terms of demand, the housing sector in the top seven cities staged an impressive recovery.

The data showed that housing sales in the top cities increased by 29 per cent this quarter against the corresponding period in 2020.

As many as 58,290 homes were sold in the top seven cities in Q1 2021 in comparison to 45,200 units in Q1 2020, effectively breaching pre-Covid levels.

MMR and Pune together accounted for 53 per cent of housing sales in the quarter. MMR sales increasing by 46 per cent annually, and Pune by 47 per cent.