Housing sales dropped 17 per cent during 2017 in nine major cities of the country because of demand slowdown and impact of new realty law, according to a report by realty portal PropTiger.

Sales declined to 2,18,500 units last year in nine cities — Gurgaon, Noida, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad — against 2,63,500 units in 2016, the News Corp-backed PropTiger said in its report.

Launches fell by 43 per cent to 1,63,573 units in 2017 from 2,88,748 units in the previous year.

Yesterday, Knight Frank India released its report and reported 7 per cent decline in housing sales and 41 per cent fall in home launches during last year in eight top cities.

Cushman & Wakefield reported 35 per cent fall in launches.

“Overall sales in top nine cities only dropped by 17 per cent compared to steep reduction in new launches.

“Drop in sales is chiefly due to drop in new launches as 32 per cent of sales in 2016 was contributed by projects launched in 2016 itself. This ratio came down to 24 per cent in 2017,” PropTiger.com, part of Elara Technologies which also owns Housing.com and Makaan.com, said in the report.

Gurgaon and Hyderabad were the only two cities which witnessed increase in sales by 27 per cent and 2 per cent respectively. The other seven cities saw decline in the range of 3 per cent to 33 per cent.

Commenting on the report, PropTiger.com Chief Investment Officer Ankur Dhawan said: “2017 was a year of reform for the Indian real estate sector with the roll out of game changing policies such as GST and RERA”.

He said states did not implement the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, which came into force from May last year, on time and hence there was confusion in the market for at least 2 months whether sales are allowed or not.

Dhawan cited example of realty major DLF which did not sell flats from May to November.

As per the report, housing sales in Gurgaon rose by 27 per cent to 14,000 units in 2017, while sales in Hyderabad went up marginally by 2 per cent to 21,000 units.

Ahmedabad saw the maximum decline by 33 per cent to 12,000 units, followed by Pune 32 per cent to 34,000 units, Noida 30 per cent to 16,000 units and Bengaluru 23 per cent to 31,500 units.

Housing sales fell by 15 per cent in Kolkata to 14,500 units in 2017 while bookings dropped by 10 per cent in Mumbai to 60,000 units. Chennai saw marginal dip of 3 per cent to 15,500 units.

Sharp fall in new launches helped in reduction in the number of unsold housing units in 2017 by 7 per cent to 7,25,828 units in these nine cities, of which Mumbai and Pune alone contribute about 4 lakh units.