After witnessing an acute slowdown during the third and fourth quarter of 2008, the real estate sector has shown some recovery in the first quarter of 2009 ending March 31. If trends of absorption for the period January-March 2009 are any indication, a report prepared by PropEquity Research suggested there has been a surge in absorption in majority of the cities. A recent study conducted by PropEquity across Mumbai, Bangalore , Chennai, Hyderabad, and Gurgaon in NCR reveals that absorption has been high among the residential new launches in the first quarter of 2009 in Mumbai, Chennai and Gurgaon.

The study attributes the success rate in absorption to the price correction and reduction in unit sizes introduced by developers in these cities. However, Bangalore and Hyderabad, which witnessed fewer new launches during the period, experienced a low absorption.The real estate sector experienced one of the worst kinds of slowdown in demand because of rise in the interest rates in the January-March 2008, by almost 2 percentage points, to 12%. At the same time, the prevailing prices of residential apartments in most of the cities made them unaffordable for most buyers. The situation further worsened after global financial markets got affected due to the failure of banks and brokering houses in the US and Europe.

This also affected Indian real estate market very badly and demand plummeted. According to the report , While October-December 2008 saw the nadir with absorption of only 1,113 units in Mumbai, the first quarter of 2009 witnessed the launch of over 14,478 residential apartment units and a corresponding absorption of 5,746 units. As against this, during October-December 2008, 3,096 units were launched, the report said. That means, in the first quarter of 2009, 40% of the launched apartments were sold, which is consid