Kailash Babar,
cash crunch in Mumbai real estate market, changing preferences of buyers and growing concern about affordability forced the developers to change their product strategy. All these factors also increased the pressure on realtors to reduce apartment size in seven important property markets . They have reduced the average size of apartments by 27 percent in the last five years. Apartment size used to be around 1,400 sq ft in 2014, which decreased to 1,020 sq ft in 2019.
According to data from Enarock Property Consultants, apartment size in Mumbai, the most expensive property market in the country, decreased by as much as 45 percent. At the same time, Pune came second with a decrease of up to 38 percent. It is also surprising that apartment size in NCR (National Capital Region), which is going through the worst phase in the residential market, fell by just 6 percent to 1,390 square feet. It was slightly ahead of Bengaluru, where the flat size declined to 1,300 square feet in 2019 .
Anuraj Puri, chairman of Enarock Property Consultants, said, “The demand for affordable housing is at the top of the important reasons for decreasing apartment size in metro cities.” The buyers of the flats are also exploring possibilities to take advantage of the government’s credit subsidy for affordable housing. In this, the condition of residential house is less than Rs 45 lakh. Also, carpet area with overall loading should not exceed 60 square meters or 850 square feet built-up area. ‘
Helping buyers take advantage of subsidies in apartment size, especially in the affordable segment. Apart from this, buying affordable houses also provides GST benefit. GST on affordable housing is 1 percent as against 5 percent on mid-segment homes.
Ozone Group CEO-Mumbai Rajat Khandelwal said, “Home buyers do not want to spoil any place. Ticket size is proving to be a game changer, but during design, liability needs to be given importance. We have reduced the size of 3-bedroom apartments by 15-10 percent in two projects. This has helped realtors a lot in increasing sales. This reduces the cost of buyers and gives them additional advantages. However, the size decreases as compared to earlier.
Developers and realtors are also getting more buyers, but many have to leave their favorite ‘luxury’ market. Among all the top cities, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) has the lowest average apartment size. It has come down from 960 sq ft in 2014 to 530 sq ft. The average size in MMR and Pune is derived according to the carpet area and the built-up area in other cities.
