New homes and apartments between Rs 1-2 crore driving housing demand in India: Housing.com report

Online property searches for renting homes grow by 1.5 Times in 2022, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Hyderabad Take the Lead. Tier 2 cities present a significant opportunity in India.

In 2022, Housing.com witnessed the highest search volume on its platform for home purchase in the Thane west location in Mumbai,  followed by Whitefield in Bengaluru and Noida Extension in Delhi-NCR.

In its latest report, Housing.com, the country’s leading platform for property search, has analysed visitors' activities on its platform during the 2022 calendar year. As per the research, New Town in Kolkata and Mira Road East in Mumbai were at 4th and 5th position, respectively, in terms of search for residential properties on Housing.com. Chandkheda in Ahmedabad was at 6th position, followed by Wakad in Pune, Kharghar in Pune, Gota in Ahmedabad and Vastral in Ahmedabad.

For the period from January to December 2022, these were the top 10 trending localities where high intent and high-volume organic searches for buying a home were recorded on the Housing.com platform.

 Dhruv Agarwala, Group CEO, Housing.com, PropTiger.com & Makaan.com said, “Based on the trends highlighted in our latest report, I am optimistic about the future of the Indian residential real estate market. We expect the demand for housing to remain strong in the top micro-markets, and we see a growing interest in new apartments and properties priced between Rs. 1 crore to 2 crores. We also see a lot of potential in tier 2 cities, where online property searches for apartments are growing at a faster pace than for independent homes. This presents a significant opportunity for developers and real estate agents to cater to the needs of home buyers in these cities.”

Agarwala further added, “Sales of residential properties continue to be robust even during this quarter despite the hike in interest rates over the past year. Overall, I am bullish on the future of the Indian residential real estate market and I believe that the industry will continue to see growth in the coming years, driven by factors such as urbanization, rising disposable incomes, and favourable government policies.”

Ankita Sood, Head of Research, Housing.com, PropTiger.com & Makaan.com, said: We are definitely in the up-cycle for residential realty demand owing to the pandemic induced shift towards higher homeownership. Fuelled by both end-user and investor interest, the property markets have shown resilience where buyers are carefully filtering out projects and looking for the right product mix in terms of affordability, accessibility and quality of living. With new supply surpassing pre- RERA levels in 2022, there are a plethora of new projects offering more choice to buyers. We see this up-cycle continuing in 2023, with quality living and lifestyle upgradation as key parameters defining property purchase.

Housing.com also observed that of total searches on its platform (website and mobile app), 60 per cent customers were looking to buy residential properties while the remaining 40 per cent wanted to take property on rent. For buying, the sweet spot was for apartments below Rs 50 lakh, as maximum searches were seen in this price bracket.       

However, Housing.com research also showed that searches for residential properties priced between Rs 1-2 crores grew 24 per cent annually in 2022. Moreover,  homebuyers searched for new apartments with queries rising by 52 per cent in 2022 over the previous year.  Queries for resale properties registered a 2% YoY drop in 2022. Online searches for properties with a 3BHK and above configuration grew 1.4 times  in 2022.

The data also showed that online property search volume for renting homes grew 1.5 times in 2022. Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Hyderabad took the lion’s share in searches and queries for renting a home in 2022.

In tier 2 cities, Lucknow emerged as the top city for buying a home, followed by Jaipur and Indore. Online property searches for apartments grew at a pace of 23% YoY, as compared to 8% YoY for independent homes in 2022. Overall, the report suggests that housing demand in these micro markets will remain strong in 2023.