As many as 67% of high-net-worth individuals are planning to buy luxury homes in 2022 and the key reason to do so during the pandemic is a lifestyle upgrade, Sotheby's Luxury Housing Outlook-2022 has said.
As many as 29% said they would want to buy a holiday home.
The most preferred luxury home was a city apartment priced between Rs 10 crore and 25 crore. A luxury vacation home was priced between Rs 5 to Rs 10 crore, it said.
The survey elicited responses from over 200 HNIs and UHNIs to gauge the mood of luxury homebuyers across India’s top eight cities - Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, and Goa.
Also Read: Luxury housing uptick expected to continue in 2022
Out of the 76 percent who responded in the affirmative to buying real estate in 2022, as many as 89 percent said they would look to buy residential real estate and 11 percent said they would opt for commercial real estate. This translates to 67 percent of the respondents wanting to buy luxury homes, going forward.
"An overwhelming 67% percent of respondents said they would look to buy luxury residential real estate in 2022. On the key motivation to buy another property, 46 percent of the respondents said, the biggest reason for them to buy property in the pandemic years was a lifestyle upgrade,” the survey said.
About 31 percent of HNI’s also said the biggest motivation to buy real estate in the last 18 months was a good investment opportunity, reflecting the emergence of bullish outlook that HNIs have on luxury real estate and their expectation of home prices to rise, the survey said.
"This remains one of the biggest aspirations for the HNIs, a change we see as significant,” said Amit Goyal, CEO of India Sotheby’s International Realty.
“The fact that people picked a good investment opportunity, as a strong reason for buying luxury real estate points to a bullish outlook on luxury home prices. Unlike some of the developed countries, where the price increase frenzy seems to be cooling off, in India, I believe, we are at the start of a secular price rise. We expect low-rise homes in the thriving urban centers, especially in Delhi NCR and Mumbai, and the vacation home destination of Goa, to be the outperformers of 2022,” he said.
With regard to the investment HNIs are willing to put in on a second property, almost 69% percent would prefer a luxury city apartment or a villa in the price range of Rs 10 crore to Rs 25 crore.
The sweet spot for a luxury holiday home was between Rs 5-10 crore with as many as 71 percent of respondents opting for this price band. About 29 percent of the respondents were even willing to spend more than Rs 10 crore for the right vacation home.
The survey was completed before the onset of the third wave of Omicron surge, but it clearly showed that the hybrid work model is here to stay. Almost, 65 percent of the respondents said that they do not see themselves going back to the physical office, all five days a week.
"This is a clear indication that the desire to upgrade homes will remain a big motivator in 2022," the survey found.
It said that 28% of HNIs had gone back to the office - full time, prior to the third wave of COVID. Almost half of the respondents though, continue to be in a hybrid work mode, spending anywhere between 1-4 days working from home. Also, about 15 percent seem to have made a complete switch to work-from-home which was negligible in India before the pandemic.
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