Affordable housing segment nearly doubles in H1 2016: Report

With the focus shifting to affordable housing, the number of launches has nearly doubled to 17,130 units during January-June 2016, a recent study has said.

As per the study by Cushman & Wakefield, the top eight cities including Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune, recorded new launches of 61,847 units during the period out of which those in the affordable segment were 17,130 units.

The total number of launches recorded a 17 per cent growth in the first half to 61,847 units from 52,782 units in the corresponding period, it said.

While the number of units launched in the affordable housing segment increase by 97 per cent from 8,698 units in H1 2015 to 17,130 units in January-June this year, mid-income segment witnessed a growth of 10 per cent from 32,997 units to 36,267 units.

The high-end segment witnessed a decline of 29 per cent in the new launches to 7,525 units from 10,662 units, while 925 units were launched in the luxury segment against 425 in the corresponding period in 2015, said the report.

"It is heartening to see that demand for this segment which was neglected for a very long time, is now being catered to as this formed a very large segment of latent demand. The uptake of affordable housing in the market, will have a cascading impact on the overall economy at large," Cushman & Wakefield Managing Director (India) Anshul Jain said.

The rise in the launch of affordable housing can be attributed to a steady demand for this segment of housing in key cities of Bengaluru, Delhi NCR and Mumbai, he said.

"Going forward, we expect to see more affordable housing projects to come up given that there is a cost benefit in creating these units. The time taken from ground breaking to completion is lower than that for the mid or high end apartments," Jain added.

He also said sales can happen a lot faster in this segment thus helping developers realise their costs earlier than usual.

"Further with the government defining the affordable space as 30 sqmt in Tier 1 and 60 sqmt in tier II and announcement of benefits for development of such apartments, we expect this segment of residential housing to grow," he said.

According to the report, city-wise the number of launches in the affordable housing stood at 4,155 in Bengaluru, 4,170 in Pune, 2,985 in Delhi NCR, 2,445 units in Ahmedabad, 2,000 in Kolkata, 1,266 in Mumbai and 109 in Hyderabad.