Urban housing demand to grow by 15 mn units by 2019

Overall urban housing demand in India is expected to grow by nearly 15 million units by the end of 2019. This has been revealed in a report released by global real estate consultants, Cushman & Wakefield earleir thids week.  The top eight cities will contribute 3.4 million units to this overall demand. Within the top eight cities, Delhi NCR will chip in with a quarter of the share of the top eight cities — 872,000 units in absolute terms. This will spread across NCT, Gurgaon, Noida, Ghaziabad and Faridabad. The report was released at the annual Real Estate Investment publication titled ‘India Real Estate - Resurgence on the Anvil’ in association with Global Real Estate Institute (GRI).

Within the top  eight cities, the Middle Income Group (MIG) will be the primary demand driver accounting for a 41 per cent or 1.4 million units in absolute terms by the end of 2019. Close on the heels of the MIG category will be the LIG category which will contribute 1.3 million units in the top eight cities during the same period.

The demand is expected to outstrip supply by roughly 2.5 times. At least a quarter of this demand will be contributed by Delhi NCR.

Sanjay Dutt, Managing Director, India, Cushman & Wakefield says, “While the forecasts are in favour of demand, rather than supply, in the coming years, the ground reality today is that there is a perceptible supply overhang — residential stock not translating into sales. In order to push sales, developers have offered attractive schemes which, when translated to the final price paid by the end user, translates to a discount. Despite these attractive schemes offered by the developers, the supply overhang continues to bother the sector.” — TNS