NoBroker’s annual Real Estate Report 2020 maps the key existing and upcoming trends in the Indian real estate sector
- Home ownership will continue to hold importance for consumers across age groups – with 82% of respondents looking to buy property in 2021
- Younger buyers have entered the real estate market
- Bigger and more than 1 crore budget houses have seen a jump
- Distance from workplace is no longer buyer’s top consideration due to the rise of remote working
- The growing dependence of people on online rent payment methods emerged as another dominant trend
- The platform helped save INR 1021 crore worth of brokerage in 2020
December 22, 2020: NoBroker.com, the world’s largest ‘peer-to-peer’ real estate portal, has mapped some interesting residential and commercial property trends in its ‘India Real Estate Report 2020’. The insights were derived based on a survey conducted with over 17,000 customers across Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, and Hyderabad, as well as the data captured from the search and transaction behaviour of more than 10 million customers on the platform.
Among the report’s key findings was a significant shift towards homeownership in India in the wake of the pandemic. The report revealed that 89% of people consider the present to be the best time for buying a house. A majority (82%) also affirmed their plan to buy a property in 2021, registering a substantial increase in the purchase sentiment compared to the previous year (64%).
The security and convenience of owning a physical asset has been the key driver shaping this behaviour in an unpredictable post-pandemic landscape and the platform has seen growth in customer registrations in the under 40 age group. Recent government and industry developments – such as stamp duty rate cuts, attractive builder discounts, and lower interest rates on home loans by top banks – have made buying more conducive.
Buyer Trends
- More than half of these potential homeowners indicated a preference for society flats (61%) over independent houses (28%) or plots (11%)
- 84% of homeowners wanted ready-to-move-in or resale house
- Budget continued to remain the most important determinant when choosing a property. However, an interesting finding is that the percentage of people looking to buy a house price over INR 80 lakhs has jumped substantially with almost 30% buyers having this budget as compared to 17% last year
- Distance from workplace, a top factor from last year, saw a decline in the 2020 in the wake of the ‘work from home’ culture
- Another noteworthy trend that came across is the popularity of larger homes. The survey indicated a significant jump in people looking for 2 and 3 BHKs to 77% as compared to 58% last year
Tenant Trends:
- Online property search platforms and digital rent payment methods have emerged as major trends in 2020. The main reason behind this was convenience and control over home-hunting offered by online real estate portals during the pandemic
- This rise coincided with the plummeting dependence on property brokers, with only 8% of consumers willing to purchase a property through a middleman, which is another 3% drop from last year. More than 92% of home-seekers stated that they no longer rely on brokers for property search
- More than one-third (35%) of the respondents preferred using real estate websites for their home search and the percentage of people using online transfer/contact-less rent payment has rocketed from 33% last year to 51% in 2020
- 35% of tenants have suggested that they are looking for a new place as they want to shift to a bigger home
- Amongst the customers surveyed by NoBroker.com, 61% of tenants indicated a preference for society accommodation. This trend was shaped by the convenience offered by society management apps used in residential societies, which enabled hassle-free living for resident members through safety features such as Health Tracker integrated with Aarogya Setu, in-app grocery stores, facial recognition-based ‘Touchless Entry’, etc.
Human Face of landlords:
- Another interesting insight revealed by the latest NoBroker.com report was the behaviour of landlords during the pandemic. More than half (50%) of the landlords in India mentioned that they had either waived off or lowered some portion of the rent in view of the COVID-19 crisis. The report also found that most cities did not experience any rent inflation this year
Speaking on the latest findings, Saurabh Garg, Co-Founder & CBO, NoBroker.com, said, “After surviving the peak of a global crisis and sluggish economy for the last 9 months, it is refreshing to see homebuying gaining prominence amongst Indian consumers in 2021. The pandemic has driven many changes such as a need for larger houses, suburbs gaining prominence, switch to digital modes of rent payment and larger number of people starting their home search online. People have realized the importance of security provided by physical assets in crisis situations and the home loan rate cuts and builder discounts have helped. These trends indicate a favorable environment for the real estate sector in 2021.”
NoBroker.com has established itself as a domain leader in the Indian proptech space on the back of consistent innovation. It helped Indians save more than 1021 crores in brokerage this year. The platform has also introduced several related offerings to reinforce its mission of providing its users with safe and convenient services. These include packers & movers, home loans, NoBroker Pay, rental agreements, home painting and cleaning services, NoBrokerHood society management app, etc. amongst others.
