Mahindra Lifespace Developers is looking at annual sales booking of ₹2,500 crore by FY25, a nearly 2.5-fold jump from the ₹1,000-odd crore it reported last fiscal.

The company saw sales bookings rise by over 30 per cent in Q2FY23 (ending September 30) year-on-year, to around ₹400 crore.

According to Arvind Subramanian, MD and CEO of Mahindra Lifespaces, half-yearly sales were ₹1,001 crore – nearly double that of H1FY22, – and were indicative of the continued uptick in housing demand. Collections for the six-month period were ₹550 crore, “ahead of plans.”

The company, listed on the bourses, will launch new residential projects across Bengaluru, Chennai, and Kalyan (Mumbai), among others, in H2FY23.

According to Subramanian, the strong booking pipeline and increase in demand across residential projects have led to pre-poning of launches, especially for its Bengaluru project.

“So far, there is very little impact of the mortgage rate hikes on demand. Post-Covid, the residential sales market continues to be end-user-driven. Now, post-rate hike, people have started increasing the down payment for their homes so that the EMI amounts remain within their budget or plans,” he told businessline.

PRICE HIKE

Mahindra Lifespaces will look at a 1.5–2 per cent sequential price hike in Q3. However, in some of the popular or premium projects, hikes could be as high as 8–10 per cent.

“Our strategy has been to initiate hikes every quarter in the range of 1.5–2 – 2 per cent. In some specific projects, hikes could be 8–10 per cent. And we will continue with that, except maybe for a particular quarter, because of an increase in input costs, the hikes were higher,” Subramanian explained.

Input costs, of steel, copper, cement, have remained “stable” for the last few quarters, but they continue to be at elevated levels on a two-year basis. Apart from price hikes, the company was working on streamlining its procurement processes in a bid to reduce the impact of higher commodity costs.

INDUSTRIAL LEASING

“In a seasonally weak quarter for residential real estate, sales bookings grew YoY. Industrial leasing too maintained a strong momentum, clocking in at ₹68 crore,” he said. For H1, industrial leasing was worth ₹186 crore, and the company intends to “double” the numbers by the end of the fiscal.

The production-linked incentive schemes, policy support for manufacturing activities, and state-level benefits being extended to investors, among others, have seen leasing activity in industrial parks pick up over the last 4–5 years.

“There is good forward looking visibility on leasing activities,” Subramanian said.

comment COMMENT NOW