Eight realty stocks slipped 0.75% to 4.61% on Friday, August 26, at 14:43 IST on BSE on worries higher interest rates could dent demand for residential and commercial property.
DLF (down 4.61%), Anant Raj Industries (down 4.09%), Unitech (down 3.83%), HDIL (down 3.33%), Indiabulls Real Estate (down 3.07%), Sobha Developers (down 2.34%), Oberoi Realty (down 1.42%) and Parsvnath Developers (down 0.75%) declined.
The BSE Realty index was down 3.14% to 1,623.43 and was the top loser among the 13 sectoral indices on the BSE. It underperformed the Sensex, which was down 174.16 points or 1.08% to 15,972.17.
Purchases of both residential and commercial property are largely driven by finance. Commercial banks have raised lending rates after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) late last month raised its key lending rate by a steeper-than-expected 50 basis points at a policy review.
Three top commercial banks–State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank, raised lending rates by half a percentage point in mid-August 2011.
