Property prices in major cities are just beginning to move up,says the latest quarterly update of the NHB Residex.The trend is borne out by the GDP data for 2012-13 too,released on Friday. For the fourth quarter of the year,construction has turned around to record a growth rate of 4.4 per cent against 2.9 per cent in the previous quarter. This trend is reflected in the Residex numbers too.The Residex,developed by the National Housing Bank with inputs from RBI and CSO tracks the movement in prices of residential properties on a quarterly basis since 2007. It has emerged as a rich source of data for the sector which is thankfully unbiased.As per the index for the quarter January-March,2013 prices of properties are firming up in twelve of the 20 cities that the Residex tracks. Of course there are wide variations among them too. The variations range from 0.52 per cent in Indore to the steep 28.74 per cent in Jaipur. On the negative side,ie where prices have dipped are eight cities with the downturn being the least at -0.54 per cent in Vijaywada to -7.84 per cent in Guwahati,quarter on quarter. But the rise in the index for the quarter January-March,demonstrates that in majority of the cities some pricing power is returning to the sector compared to the previous quarter.In the Delhi NCR which accounts for the bulk of the real estate market in the country,there is a clear sign of uptick. Delhi itself shows a rise of 3.59 per cent while Faridabad has corrected by 0.98 per cent. Among the four metros. Mumbai too has risen 2.31 per cent but in the two other cities Kolkata and Chennai prices have fallen.The other cities where prices are improving for the housing stock available are Bangalore at 2.83 per cent,Kochi at 2.30 per cent and Ahmedabad at 0.53 per cent. From the current quarter Residex has been expanded to include six more cities: Chandigarh,Coimbatore,Dehradun,Meerut,Nagpur and Raipur. Compared to the base year 2007 prices in these cities naturally has risen considerably. It is 94 per cent in Chandigarh followed by 91 per cent in Meerut and another 84 per cent in Coimbatore down to 56 per cent in Raipur.But six years after the index was launched by finance minister P Chidambaram,the Residex is still far from complete. It was supposed to cover all the 63 cities under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission but that has yet to happen. Also at present,index is being developed only for residential housing sector. Plans to expand it later for a wider geographical spread to include separate indices for commercial property and land are still at the drawing board. The plan is to use all of them combined to arrive at the real estate price index. “The data based on actual transactions are put through a model that depicts the trend in the market. The Residex is expected to bring greater uniformity and transparency in the valuation of properties across the industry”,says the bank chairman RV Verma.Rising Trend: Residential housing prices in 12 cities have shown increase in prices in this quarter ended March,2013 (January-March,2013) over the previous quarter ended December,2012 (October-December,2012). Maximum increase was observed in Jaipur (28.74per cent) followed by Bhubaneswar (14.54per cent),Pune (7.81per cent),Bhopal (6.49per cent),Delhi (3.59per cent),Bangalore (2.83per cent),Mumbai (2.31per cent),Kochi (2.30per cent),Faridabad (0.98per cent),Patna (0.67per cent),Ahmedabad (0.53per cent) and Indore (0.52per cent).Declining Trend: Eight cities have shown decline in prices over the previous quarter with maximum fall observed in Guwahati (-7.84 per cent) followed by Ludhiana (-6.71 per cent),Surat (-6.67 per cent),Kolkata (-5.75 per cent),Lucknow (-3.18 per cent),Hyderabad (-2.23 per cent),Chennai (-1.28 per cent) and Vijaywada (-0.54 per cent).