Growth momentum in luxury housing is here to stay, here is why?

Angad Bedi, MD, BCD India Group 

A black swan event like the coronavirus pandemic is expected to have far-reaching implications. How one views one’s home is one such aspect that has undergone a sea change before and after the pandemic.

If a home was a place that provided us shelter and comfort earlier, it has now become a haven and a single-stop solution for all our requirements since we are spending a lot of our time here. Little wonder then, that the luxury housing segment in India has got a giant upwards push in the past two years. Industry reports have been substantiating this claim time and again.

According to a recent report by Anarock, the share of apartments priced over Rs 1.5 crore has doubled in the total housing sales in the first half of 2022 as people chose bigger homes and spent more on housing in the aftermath of the pandemic. The report states that about 14% of around 1.84 lakh units sold in India’s top 7 cities in the first half of 2022 were from the luxury segment. This share stood at just 7% for the entire 2019.

What changed in the past 2 years?

As more and more companies continue to maintain the previously launched remote working model, people are now spending more time at home. Since no local data is available in this regard, we will use insights from data from the US in this regard. According to the American Time Use Survey, people spent about 62% of their waking time at home as opposed to 50% in 2019.

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Unlike in the past when an ordinary person spent most of his awake time in the office and expected only so much from a home, they spend a lot more time there now due to work-from-home norms. At the same time, in the period during which people were forced to stay indoors because of the lockdowns when the infection rate was at its peak, people realized the need a have house that would not just be a home but a sanctuary well equipped to act as a workplace, a gymnasium, a break-out zone, a kid’s play area and a relaxation zone in the midst of green surrounding. Easy access to hospitals, medical stores and provisional stores has also become non-negotiable for a homebuyer.

As is natural, having all these facilities at one’s disposal is only possible if a housing project, firstly, offers large homes and, secondly, has come up with a development equipped with all the luxury facilities. This is one reason why there has been a spurt in the number of luxury projects launched across India, too, in the post-pandemic world.

Aside from these facilities, a lot of attention is also now being paid to home and interior décor, elements that have the capacity to immediately change the look and vibe of a residence. While the facilities and amenities in a housing project cater to a buyer’s requirements in the physical world, home décor can have a deep emotional impact on people, acting as a complete mood lifter. This is why we have also seen a sudden rush of those colours, textures and materials becoming more popular that are well-known to provide us with a sense of calm, peace, happiness and well-being.

That is also one reason minimalism has become more mainstream now than it ever was in the world of home décor as more and more people shun clutter and excess.

Going forward, the above-mentioned factors are going to impact home-purchase decisions in India for a long time to come. To survive and thrive, real estate developers must be duly aware of these factors and cater accordingly.

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