Urban Housing Demand remains Solid, but Eagerness Fades: Pirojsha Godrej

Pirojsha Godrej, Executive Chairperson of Godrej Properties, stated that while the demand for residential real estate is still "extremely high" in large cities, the enthusiasm of the past several years is somewhat abating.

One of the top developers of real estate in the nation is Godrej Properties. In 2024, it sold more than Rs. 28,000 crore worth of homes, making it the biggest listed real estate company in terms of pre-sales or sales bookings.

According to the company's pre-sales figures, Pirojsha Godrej stated in an interview with PTI that there is no slowdown in the housing market's demand.

"Am I seeing a slowdown in demand. The answer is 'No'. Because we have seen Rs. 500 crore plus sales in our new housing project launches in five different cities (during the December quarter) across North, South, West and East India. That to me is pretty indicative of a very strong housing market," Pirojsha said.

He added, "But, I would say that some of that euphoria is perhaps mellowing down a little bit, particularly in Delhi-NCR... It has settled into a more sort of standard strong market. Euphoria that was there 6-12 months ago seems to have cooled off a little bit, but demand remains very strong”.

Pirojsha noted that the company's five new launches in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Bengaluru, Gurugram, Pune, and Kolkata generated sales of over Rs. 500 crore during the third quarter of this fiscal year.

"This is perhaps for the first time that any developer in the country has seen such a positive response from new launches across that many cities," he noted

Vipul Roongta, MD and CEO of HDFC Capital Advisors, has noted that the rate of increase in home prices has decreased.

"Clearly the euphoria, which was there say maybe a year, year and a half back, related to increase in prices is no longer there in any of the micro markets, irrespective of segment, irrespective of brand," Roongta said.