81% home seekers concerned over skyrocketing housing prices, but MMR outlier: ANAROCK

As India's top real estate markets see average residential prices surging over 50% in the last two years, city-wise trends show that while a majority of homebuyers are extremely concerned about the rising prices in their respective cities, MMR has emerged as a surprising outlier, a notable exception among top real estate markets, according to a latest survey by real estate consultancy ANAROCK.

"In India's most over-the-top expensive real estate market, just 39% of our respondent property seekers expressed high concern about the steep prices in the region. The remaining 61% have equally surprising takes - 20% are not at all concerned, and 41% only moderately so,” Anuj Puri, Chairman, ANAROCK Group says.

MMR boasts near-unmatched market fundamentals, driven by long-term capital appreciation, a lack of land, the highest annual inward migration in the country, and constant infrastructure upgrades. “However, such a high level of buyer confidence is still interesting in a region with the highest average housing prices across all Indian cities," says Puri.

The current global headwinds have left their mark on India's real estate market, and several respondents admit their homebuying decisions have been affected. The survey finds that rising home prices are a major concern for over 81% polled property seekers across India. A major reason for this is: the top 7 cities have seen average residential prices rise by over 50% in the last two years (from INR 6,001/sq.ft. in Q2 2023 to INR 8,990/sq.ft. by Q2 2025, the ANAROCK Research data shows.

Other survey findings are: 62% aspiring buyers of affordable housing are dissatisfied with the current available options in the market; 92% of these are unhappy with the project locations; 90% state that these projects are of low construction quality and are 'poorly designed'; and 77% find the unit sizes too small to be of utility and interest.

Puri thinks these findings dovetail disturbingly with the documented demand contraction for affordable housing, or homes priced at or under ₹45 lakh. According to ANAROCK data, it has shrunk to just 17% in H1 2025 from 40% back in same period in 2020. "Concurrently, new supply of affordable housing has nosedived in the last two years across the top 7 cities – from 18% in H1 2023 to just 12% in H1 2025. Back in 2019, its supply share was 40% of the total new launches."

On this front, the H1 2025 survey represented a marked trend reversal over the H1 2024:  ₹90 lakh to ₹1.5 crore has emerged as the 'most favoured' option for over 36% of prospective homebuyers,  indicating a stronger shift towards premium and luxury properties. Also, 25% prefer homes priced between ₹45 lakh and  ₹90 lakh.

When presented with ready-to-move-in (RTM) vs. new launches options, the H1 2025 survey finds that demand for RTM homes is declining, and is, in fact, at the lowest end of the preference chart. This is a complete trend reversal compared to H1 2020, when the demand ratio stood at 46:18, and H1 2021, when it was 32:21, the report adds.

The ANAROCK survey also highlights that more than 65% of the polled prospective buyers are entering the market as end-users, with investors appearing to be taking a measured pause. Bengaluru has the largest share (43%) of buyers seeking property specifically for investment; the remaining 57% are end-users. The survey indicates that Delhi-NCR has the lowest share of investors at 26%, with 74% seeking to buy as end-users.

The survey also adds that 63% of respondents pick real estate as the 'most preferred' investment asset class -- a 4% increase over the previous year’s survey, and 70% millennials & 46% Gen-X respondents intend to use their investment gains for purchasing a home soon.