Over the past decade, India's real estate sector has delivered strong growth in value, scale and investor confidence. As this growth matures, one opportunity stands out clearly: restoring the ability of the average middle-class household to own a home in the city it works in. As an industry, we have the chance to meet this moment with the same ambition we bring to our growth targets.
For much of the last five years, property prices in India's metros grew faster than incomes, a natural phase in a rapidly maturing market. According to industry reports, between 2020 and 2024, property prices rose at roughly 9.3% a year against income growth of around 5.4%. Affordable housing's share of total sales eased over the same period, as developers responded to rising input costs by serving buyers with greater purchasing power. This was a sound business response to the moment. However, it also points us toward a clear and energising chance: bringing a significant, underserved segment of aspiring buyers back into the market.
A more encouraging outlook
There are genuinely strong signs that this shift is now within reach. For the first time since 2021, household income growth is expected to outpace property price appreciation, with industry projections indicating that the EMI-to-income ratio across major cities will stabilise between 2026 and 2028. This is a positive structural shift, not a temporary uptick, and it reflects broader macroeconomic tailwinds, including moderating interest rates and continued wage growth.
India's wider economic momentum adds further weight to this outlook. GDP grew 7.8% in the April-June quarter, well ahead of the RBI's own forecast of 7%, and the fourth consecutive quarter of strong growth despite real global headwinds. Within that growth, real estate, finance and professional services expanded 12.1%, among the strongest performers in the entire economy. A sector growing faster than the broader economy, backed by rising incomes and easing EMI pressure, is exactly the kind of foundation that can support a genuine return of the middle-class buyer.
The residential sector's fundamentals remain genuinely sound. Even as buyers exercised greater caution through the past year, with sales volumes easing by roughly 8%, overall market value still grew by around 15%, a clear sign of a sector that is maturing confidently, not one under stress. This combination of improving affordability, strong macroeconomic tailwinds and underlying market resilience gives our industry a real, well-timed opportunity to re-engage the middle-class buyer at scale.
Turning Opportunity into Action
Improving affordability metrics gives us the opening. However, turning that opening into lasting change requires deliberate action from developers, policymakers and financial institutions, working in concert, and that is an exciting mandate for our industry to lead on.
The industry can reinvest in the mid-market segment as a core business strategy, designing efficient, right-sized housing at scale, supported by disciplined cost management, so that affordability is achieved through better execution rather than compromised quality.
Development can also align more closely with infrastructure planning. As demand shifts toward emerging growth corridors on the periphery of major cities, developers are well placed to build in step with transit, civic infrastructure and connectivity, ensuring that affordability comes paired with strong liveability and long-term value.
Finally, the industry can engage constructively with policymakers on financing and incentive frameworks. Loan structures that reflect real household income trajectories, and targeted incentives for mid-market development, will be powerful enablers of this shift, and sustained advocacy from industry bodies and individual companies alike will help bring it to life.
Looking ahead
Homeownership has long been central to the aspirations of India's middle class, and it remains one of the clearest indicators of broad-based economic progress. The improvement we are now seeing in affordability metrics gives our industry genuine, well-timed momentum to reconnect with this segment of buyers, and that momentum is ours to build on.
The future of metropolitan housing will be shaped by how successfully our cities remain accessible to the people who power their economies. That is the real measure of progress for this industry: not growth in value alone, but growth that brings the middle class along with it, and that future is well within reach.
