Apartment sales power Overseas Realty June quarter

 Overseas Realty (Ceylon) PLC continued to see robust sales for its luxury apartments at its Havelock City project, reflecting the country’s real estate sector has recovered strongly irrespective of virus-related restrictions and other challenges, which marred most of the June (2Q21) quarter. 

The luxury real estate developer for both commercial and residential use, reported revenues of Rs.903.8 million from apartment sales in its fiscal second quarter ended in June 30, up exponentially from Rs.114.7 million reported in the year 
earlier period. 

The sales were also up from Rs.761.3 million generated in its first fiscal quarter ended in March, indicting that the company is seeing strong uptake of its luxury apartment units at its final two phases of the Havelock City residential project.

 
By the end of 2020, the company had sold 68 percent of the units in the Phase 3 of the project, which consists of 304 residential units, and 26 percent was pre-sold in the Phase 4 of the project, which consists of two apartment towers with 340 luxury apartments. 

The construction of Phase 4, which was 97 percent complete by the end of 2020, was scheduled to be completed by April-end. 

Sri Lanka’s real estate sector broadly defied the pandemic-induced headwinds, except for brief slowdown during the first wave as the tax benefits and the low interest rates in town soon brought back to its peak performance.
Meanwhile, the rental income, which comes from leasing of office space in the World Trade Centre, generated revenues of Rs.493.0 million for the quarter under review, down by 23 percent from the same period a year ago. 
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the decline was caused by the relief afforded to tenants affected by the pandemic or by the lower occupancy, or both. 

The Commercial property component of Havelock City project, which comprises of an office tower and a shopping complex is now in its final stretch of construction, and will generate recurring revenues for the group by way of rental incomes after the two buildings, which are slated to be fully completed by the end of 2021 enter business. 
Pre-leasing of both the commercial and retail space has commenced, the company said earlier. 

Meanwhile, the consolidated revenues from rental incomes, apartment sales and other property services were at Rs.1.55 billion for the three months under review, up by a robust 86 percent from a year ago. 

The company reported earnings of 26 cents a share or Rs.326.9 million for the quarter under review, compared to earnings of 68 cents a share or Rs.228.1 million in the same period last year.