Mumbai, the country’s biggest property market, has kickstarted the festive season with robust momentum in residential sales driven by record-low home loan rates and offers from realty developers.The city recorded property registrations of 3,205 units or 400 units daily during the auspicious Navratri festival that began on October 7. The daily registrations rate in previous months of August and September was 219 units and 260 units respectively, showed a Knight Frank India study.The significant but limited period stamp duty reduction window that ended on March 31, 2021 was a key catalyst for the city’s residential market. The closure of this incentive window coincided with the severe pandemic second wave, which adversely impacted the homebuyer sentiment in the interim. However, since then the housing market has again picked up momentum.“After almost half a decade of depressed festival season, this year may break the cycle and be one of the best. The residential market continues its aggressive move forward during the auspicious period of Navratri. It is encouraging to see that the daily average of home registrations has jumped in the festive period without the stamp duty incentive support,” said Shishir Baijal, CMD, Knight Frank India.With the central bank maintaining its stance on low policy interest rate, and developers offering attractive offers, sales trajectory has picked up again with sales in July and August higher than pre pandemic same months in 2018 and 2019.“The festive season has started with a bang. Homebuyers are taking complete advantage of the best market conditions including record-low home loan rates and competitive property prices. We have sold apartments worth over Rs 1,200 crore in the last eight days alone and nearly Rs 750 crore of this has come from luxury and semi-luxury segment, while affordable and mid-income segment is also showing robust sales velocity,” said Ram Naik, joint director, The Guardians Real Estate Advisory.According to the study, the daily registrations rate this month until October 13 is 17% higher than the intensity in the complete month of August and 1% lower than the complete month of September. The period of Shradh, which fell between September 21 and October 6, saw a slowdown in decision making for high value purchases like real estate in the interim.During the first two weeks of October, property registrations in Mumbai stood at 4,052 transactions fetching revenue worth Rs 259.60 crore to the state government through stamp duty charges.With upbeat consumer sentiments and support from low interest rates, improved consumer perception of home ownership will get a boost from the festive season leading up to Diwali. Developers too have aligned new project launches to benefit from the upbeat homebuyer sentiment and these factors are expected to contribute to sales momentum that the Mumbai residential market will witness during this period.