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India’s housing market has undergone a dramatic shift — affordable homes have receded from sales charts, while luxury units have surged to record highs. Prices have climbed steeply across cities, fuelled by rising land costs, premium demand, and growing investor interest. Developers, chasing higher margins, are sidelining affordable projects, leaving supply increasingly skewed towards the upper end.
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An analysis of the real estate sector in India’s top seven cities – Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Kolkata –using consultancy ANAROCK’s data reveals the key trends shaping this transformation.
Chart 1
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The share of affordable homes priced below Rs 40 lakh in housing sales across India’s top seven residential markets has dropped from 37 per cent in 2021 to 18 per cent in the first half of 2025. While developers have shifted launches towards higher-end segments for better margins, weak demand in the affordable segment has further skewed the sales mix.
Between 2021 and 2024, affordable unit sales rose just 6 per cent — from 87,510 to 93,000 units — even as overall sales nearly doubled.
Chart 2
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In stark contrast to affordable housing, sales of luxury units priced above Rs 1.5 crore have surged 450 per cent — from about 21,000 in 2021 to nearly 1.2 lakh in 2025. Their share of overall sales has jumped from 9 per cent to 29 per cent.
While the expansion of India’s wealthy class has been a key driver, the shift also reflects post-pandemic preferences. Lockdowns and work-from-home policies heightened demand for larger homes with more amenities — naturally pushing buyers towards higher-priced units.
Chart 3
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Average prices per sq ft have climbed sharply over the past two years. In Delhi-NCR, they jumped 49 per cent to Rs 8,650 in April–June 2025 from Rs 5,800 in October–December 2023. In the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) — which includes Thane and Navi Mumbai — prices rose 25 per cent to Rs 16,600, the highest in the country. Bengaluru and Hyderabad saw increases of around 32 per cent each.
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Rising urban land costs have pushed prices up, particularly as many buyers seek homes in and around city centres. Some experts also believe that certain pockets of the market may have seen high speculative activity.
Chart 4
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In April–June 2025, unsold residential inventory slipped 3 per cent year-on-year to 5.6 lakh units, with MMR (1.8 lakh), Hyderabad (98,000), and Delhi-NCR (89,000) accounting for the bulk. Inventory has been steadily declining since late 2021, when it stood at about 6.5 lakh units.
Affordable housing still makes up a sizable chunk of stock in Delhi-NCR (26 per cent) and Mumbai (30 per cent), but remains scarce in Bengaluru (5 per cent) and Hyderabad (2 per cent). By contrast, luxury dominates in Bengaluru (39 per cent), Delhi-NCR (37 per cent), and Hyderabad (35 per cent).
Hyderabad’s inventory overhang — the time needed to clear existing stock with no new supply — is the highest at 26 months, signalling oversupply in the market. Delhi-NCR stands at 19 months, MMR at 16, and Bengaluru at 12.
Chart 5
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While some affordable housing inventory remains in Delhi-NCR, it is set to shrink further, with no new affordable launches in the latest quarter. Instead, 82 per cent of launches were luxury units. Affordable launches were also absent in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai. Mumbai bucked the trend, with 33 per cent of new supply in the affordable segment, followed by Kolkata (23 per cent) and Pune (15 per cent).
Developers increasingly view affordable housing projects as unviable at this point in time. Earlier this month, Niranjan Hiranandani, chairman of the Hiranandani Group, told The Indian Express: “How do you match rising land prices and giving affordable housing? It is not possible today with inflation in the cost of construction, the tax rates which are there, stamp duty rate, GST rate, local authority rates, etc. You cannot make affordable housing close to the city centre where employment opportunities exist.”
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