Housing Affordability: 81% of Buyers Balk at 50% Price Surge-ANAROCK Consumer Survey

Mumbai, September 8, 2025: Skyrocketing home prices across cities have been a major pain point for home seekers over the past few years, but there are notable exceptions, according to the ANAROCK Consumer Sentiment Survey for H1 2025.

“City-wise trends indicate that while residential property seekers across cities are extremely concerned about the rising prices in their respective cities, MMR has emerged as a surprising outlier,” says Anuj Puri, Chairman, ANAROCK Group.

“In India’s most over-the-top expensive real estate market, just 39 per cent of our respondent property seekers expressed high concern about the steep prices in the region. The remaining 61 per cent have equally surprising takes with 20 per cent not at all concerned and 41 per cent only moderately so.”

MMR has near-matchless market fundamentals, long-term capital appreciation driven by the 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.

Everywhere Else-A Major Concern

Nevertheless, the blowing global headwinds have left their mark, and several respondents admit that their homebuying decisions have been affected. The survey finds that rising home prices are a major concern for over 81 per cent of property seekers polled across India. This stands to reason— ANAROCK Research finds that the top seven cities have seen average residential prices rise by over 50 per cent in the last two years (from INR 6,001/sq ft in Q2 2023 to INR 8,990/sq ft by Q2 2025).

Affordable Housing

• 62 per cent of aspiring buyers of affordable housing are dissatisfied with the current available options in the market.
• 92 per cent of these are unhappy with the project locations.
• 90 per cent state that these projects are of low construction quality and are ‘poorly designed’.
• 77 per cent of the respondents find the unit sizes too small to be of utility and interest.

“These findings dovetail disturbingly with the documented demand contraction for affordable housing or homes priced at or under INR 45 lakh,” adds Puri.

“According to ANAROCK data, it has shrunk to just 17 per cent in H1 2025 from 40 per cent back in the same period in 2020. Concurrently, the new supply of affordable housing has nosedived in the last two years across the top seven cities— from 18 per cent in H1 2023 to just 12 per cent in H1 2025. Back in 2019, its supply share was 40 per centof the total new launches.”

Budget Preferences

On this front, the H1 2025 survey represents a marked trend reversal over the H1 2024 survey:
 
INR 90 lakh to INR 1.5 crore has emerged as the ‘most favoured’ option for over 36 per cent of prospective homebuyers, indicating a stronger shift towards premium and luxury properties.

25 per cent prefer homes priced between INR 45 lakh and INR 90 lakh.

Ready-to-move-in Vs New Launches

The H1 2025 survey finds that demand for RTM homes is declining and is, in fact, at the lowest end of the preference chart. As of H1 2025, the ratio of demand for ready homes against new launches stood at 16:29 against 20:25 in H1 2024. 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.

End-users Vs. Investors

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

Other Major Highlights:

• 63 per cent of respondents pick real estate as the ‘most preferred’ investment asset class, a 4 per cent increase over the previous year’s survey
• 70 per cent of millennials and 46 per cent of Gen-X respondents intend to use their investment gains for purchasing a home soon.