Hiranandani Group MD Explains How Indians Are Moving Towards Home Ownership Instead of Rental Houses

The Indian housing market has been revitalised by sustainable domestic consumption. Housing sales have returned to record levels since the COVID-19 outbreak. Rent-favoured audiences view personal home ownership as a secure asset that also offers social security benefits. Strong demand, coupled with buoyant sales, has resulted in a rise in property prices after years of sluggish activity.

Housing demand is supported by robust economic growth, positive GDP, and well-managed geopolitical turmoil. Currently, prospective homebuyers are contemplating utilising capital market gains for their home financing objectives, given the current market environment.

The inherent sense of home ownership has prodded domestic and NRI fence sitters to morph into actual homebuyers. The sense of owning a property back in the homeland amid layoff waves, geopolitical sanctions, and trade turbulence. Hence, it is recommended for the global Indians to buy property in favourable market dynamics for better rental yield, a stable source of income, and use it for end use in times of catastrophe.

The pandemic quandary prompted homeowners to upgrade to spacious luxury homes. Homebuyers are more than ever leaning towards holistic living encapsulating better privacy, access to daily necessities, seamless connectivity, and a sense of community living. This is proliferating into a ’15-minute city’ concept. The mixed-use township enables us to curate an integrated smart and sustainable development comprising residential, commercial, retail, and recreational real estate.

The hybrid living era is characterised by branded real estate projects that combine social, economic, and emotional preferences at an attractive price point. Homebuying has rapidly emerged as a priority for millennials due to improved financial prudence, job security, an aspirational lifestyle, and exploring new avenues to generate additional disposable income.

Land transactions across key property markets witnessed an upward trajectory on account of the positive outlook pegged by the realty players. The demand uptick signifies an increase in capex investment to gear up production across potential markets in metropolis and tier towns.

The influx of global firms into Grade A real estate implies a buoyant outlook for India’s economic growth and demand. The new business avenues like joint ventures, private equity funded, joint development agreement, project development, SPV, REITs are gaining ground as a result of market consolidation pulsation.

The housing stock in the pipeline is proportional to the surge in demand for ownership and rental housing. The paucity of available land parcels in metro cities has spurred redevelopment and slum rehabilitation development, followed by plotted developments. The real estate market will see a rise in evolving product mix like student housing, coliving, senior living, and multi-family housing in the looming future due to flux in work and lifestyle.

It is true that the well-balanced geo-political crisis of the Indian government has predicted conducive economic growth, enhanced investment climate, and increased domestic demand, as well as the development of mega infrastructure projects across the country.

The spurt in economic activities has led to irrefutable GDP growth clocked at 6.1 per cent in Q4 2023 along with multiplier job creation. The startling GDP growth will stoke rental value as demand for rental homes will stem up due to job drift in key property markets. Thus, the growth of office and retail commercial assets is set to continue upward.

In the pursuit of Housing for All, housing production will continue to rise northwards. Buying a home, to a large extent, boils down to an individual’s financial bandwidth along with the desire to own a personal home in a conducive social setting. A bullish outlook for housing is evident as home ownership is more than just a generational asset that creates wealth in India.

(The author is national vice-chairman of NAREDCO and MD of Hiranandani Group)