| | JUNE 20268Shift from Metros to Suburbs: Emerging Locations & Projects The real estate market in India has recorded a clear shift in buyer preference and investment approach over the last few years, with upscale metropolitan cores giving way to suburban growth zones.Homebuyers and investors are increasingly moving out of the traditional metro boundaries due to changes in lifestyle needs, remote work factors, cost pressures, and key infrastructure projects. This suburbanization of metros is not only a transactional aberration but a structural change that is transforming residential demand, capital flows and urban planning paradigms throughout the nation. The Infrastructure Impetus: Connectivity as a Catalyst The rise in costs during the last ten years in major metro markets such as Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad has risen at a faster rate than income growth, and now ownership of such markets is more of a dream than a reality for several. At the same time, better connectivity, in the form of extensions of metro rails, highways, expressways, and elevated roads, has shortened the time to commute and distorted the historical space between suburbs and places of work. The distance to work centres in work-from-home and hybrid work is no longer a purchase driver, but space, affordability, and quality of life are now the key motivators behind buying choices.Government policies that encourage low-cost housing, combined with increased need to have bigger
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