New Delhi, May 31 (IANS): Online real estate portal, Housing.com along with the Indian School of Business (ISB) on Monday announced the launch of its Housing Pricing Index (HPI), an indicator of economic activity in real-estate, the second-largest employment generating sector in India after agriculture.

Launched during a virtual meet attended by Union Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary, Durga Shanker Mishra and several industry leaders and academicians, the HPI will provide monthly reports on price and quantity movement in various property markets across the country.

According to the Gurugram-based digital real estate company, the HPI, created in association with the ISB Srini Raju Centre for IT and the Networked Economy (SRITNE), aims to serve as a tool that tracks changes in residential home prices across India's eight major markets.

By offering useful insights into price movement, the index could help a potential homebuyer assess the appropriate time to buy a property and at the same time assist sellers in knowing the most opportune moment to sell their assets.

Policymakers and financial analysts can also use it as a reliable estimate to keep track of the trends in the sector.

Based on a survey of cities such as Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi NCR (Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gurugram, Greater Noida and Noida), Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune from 2017 to the present, conducted every quarter, the Elara Technologies-owned company's HPI uses granular prices from localities and their corresponding weights based on transaction value share of that locality in India, basing its findings on 1, 2, and 3-BHK apartments.

Data collected for this purpose include information on price per square foot, quantity, and the total value of transactions in the previous three months for various sub-localities within each city.

It also includes other details such as the number of bedrooms, construction status, and the number of inventory units.

The prime objective to launch the HPI is to bring transparency and narrow down the trust deficit between all the concerned industry stakeholders.

It will also address the challenge of the paucity of well-defined data and foster companies with the right business intelligence, market insights, trends, and sentiments to sign off well-informed decisions.