An increase in purchasing power on the back of a rise in unicorns has fuelled the demand for luxury apartments in the country, said real estate industry players. Buyers keen to go in for apartments that are filled with high end amenities propelled demand for luxury homes in the last three months, they added.

India has seen a rapid increase in unicorns (start-ups whose valuation exceed $1 billion) this calendar year on the back of the emergence of a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country. The number of unicorns have exceeded sixty till date.

Unity group

Realty firm Unity group that tied up with the Italian fashion brand Versace to develop 150 luxury apartments in the central area of the national capital has sold 25 per cent of these apartments so far, of which 9 were sold in the last quarter. The base price of each apartment was ₹15 crore.

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“The demand for the luxury housing sector has picked up in the last four months and will continue to see an up-tick. Those who opted for a premium unit are going for the luxury one. During lockdown they spent lot of time in their homes and now want to have a space that is bigger and has all the amenities,” said Harsh Vardhan Bansal, Director, Unity Group.

DLF sees record sales

Realty major DLF reported record sales of ₹1,512 crore in the super luxury segment. DLF Camellias, the company’s super luxury project, sold 34 units in the second quarter with record sales of ₹ 1,037 crore. .

The price of an apartment in DLF Camellias is ₹30 crore upwards (rate is ₹40,000 per square feet).

Real estate industry observers said that buyers are generally in the age group of 45–55 years. Besides, in the pandemic, the number of unicorn companies have grown bigger. Therefore, IT and start-up professionals have bought into such project.

Segment share goes up

Real estate consultancy firm Anarock said that if it consider the three quarters of calendar year 2021 collectively, luxury sales share went up considerably. As per a study done by it, the first three quarters of 2021 have seen total sales of 1,45,650 units in the top seven Indian cities of which luxury housing share stands at 12 per cent. In pre-Covid 2019, of the total sales of 2.61 lakh units, the share of luxury housing sales was around 7 per cent.

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“Amid the rising inflationary trends of the input costs (cement, steel etc.), developers are gradually beginning to raise the prices in few of their projects. The price hike is much along the expected lines and buyers are also warming up to it – particularly in those projects where demand is high, and supply is low,” Anuj Puri, Chairman, Anarock Group told BusinessLine..

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