Cities where it's costliest and cheapest to buy a house

Housing prices appreciated in 18 major cities by up to 3.9 per cent in April-June over the preceding quarter while property rates fell in six cities including Delhi, according to National Housing Bank (NHB).

In the national capital, housing prices dropped by 3 per cent during the first quarter of this fiscal compared with the January-March 2014.

Maximum price increase was witnessed in Pune by 3.9 per cent, while Chandigarh saw highest fall of 4.4 per cent, according to NHB's 'RESIDEX'.

NHB had launched housing index 'RESIDEX' in July 2007 to track the movement of housing prices on a quarterly basis.

It currently covers 26 cities. Prices in two cities – Hyderabad and Raipur -- remained stagnant.

"The movement in prices of residential properties for the quarter April-June, 2014 has shown marginal increasing trend in 18 cities ranging from 0.5 per cent in Bhubaneswar to 3.9 per cent in Pune, and fall in 6 cities ranging from -0.5 per cent in Lucknow to -4.4 per cent in Chandigarh in comparison to the previous quarter January-March, 2014," NHB said in a statement.

The appreciation in property prices in majority of cities tracked by NHB comes at a time when the domestic real estate sector is reeling under a lingering slowdown for last 2-3 years.

Maximum increase was observed in Pune (3.9 per cent) followed by Coimbatore (3.5 per cent), Indore (3.3 per cent), Guwahati (3.2 per cent), Patna (2.7 per cent) and Kolkata (2.4 per cent).

Housing prices appreciated in Ahmedabad by 1.91 per cent, Vijayawada (1.88 per cent), Mumbai (1.75 per cent), Chennai (1.72 per cent), Ludhiana (1.4 per cent), Bhopal (1.3 per cent), Kochi (1.2 per cent), Jaipur (0.99 per cent), Faridabad (0.96 per cent), Bengaluru (0.93 per cent), Nagpur (0.6 per cent) and Bhubaneswar (0.5 per cent).

"Six cities have shown decline in prices over the previous quarter with maximum fall observed in Chandigarh (-4.4 per cent) followed by Meerut (-3.6 per cent), Delhi (-3 per cent), Surat (-2.4 per cent), Dehradun (-2.1 per cent) and Lucknow (-0.5 per cent)," NHB said.

The Residex for the quarter April-June, 2014 has taken into account the price trends for residential properties in different locations and zones in each city and is based upon the transaction data received from Central Registry of Securitisation Asset Reconstruction and Security Interest of India (CERSAI).

The data based on actual transactions are put through a model that depicts the trend in the market, NHB said.