3,000 applications for 1,137 Gurugram luxury apartments priced at over Rs 7 crore each: What's on offer

India’s luxury home bull run is expected to continue even as prices and lending costs significantly increased in recent months. A Reuters poll of analysts has shown that despite rising costs and a global recession fear, the luxury home market is reviving at a great pace.  

Recently, real estate major DLF Ltd sold a $1 billion upmarket residential project, while Godrej Properties is reportedly offering $3 million apartments to clients selected by invitation. Both the sales projected a strong revival in the market, a Reuters report said. 

Property developers have reported that there is a growing demand for spacey high-price apartments that come with add-on services, such as concierge services, spas, multi-level parking, large green open spaces, and a heated pool.  Such amenities are not available in individual houses and old apartment blocks around Indian cities.  

Supply of new luxury homes in India has been constrained in recent years, hit by an economic slowdown in 2019 and then the pandemic, which dampened sentiment in 2020 and forced developers to put brakes on new project launches. But things are changing at a great speed.  

According to recent data from the real estate consultancy firm Knight Frank India, 9,268 residential units in Mumbai were registered in February, of which 13 per cent of properties were priced at Rs 2.5 crore or above, according to data.  

The average value of the property registered in Mumbai city (BMC) was Rs 1.9 crore, which was 65 per cent more than the average value of properties registered in February 2022. 

In Delhi NCR, DLF’s Arbour project in Gurugram attracted more than 3,000 applications for 1,137 apartments priced at Rs 7 crore each. The prices are very high for the area. The booking centre was besieged by people queuing to buy homes during the project launch weekend in February this year. 

In Mumbai, Sugee Developers last week published front-page advertisements offering sea-view residences starting at $1.7 million (Rs 13 crore) in a development that will have an amphitheater, landscape gardens, and a sky deck lobby. 

Godrej’s “Connaught One” project near central Delhi’s premier shopping district is offering apartments for $2-$3.3 million (Rs 13-26 crore), on par with a good-class bungalow in parts of the city. 

Mad rush for luxury homes 

In all, a record 65,700 luxury units were sold in 2022, three times the previous year, with Mumbai, New Delhi and Hyderabad leading sales. In 2019, before the pandemic, 18,150 units were sold, the Reuters report said. Overall, there was an 18 per cent jump in luxury housing sales in the top 7 cities in 2022.  

Many experts believe that the boom in luxury home buying could be due to the recent Narendra Modi-led government’s proposal to cap the deduction on capital gains on investments in residential houses to Rs 10 crore. 

During her Budget 2023 speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed to cap the deduction from capital gains on investment in residential houses under Sections 54 and 54F to Rs 10 crore.  

The decision is being seen as a reason behind the luxury property buying rush in cities, like Delhi and Mumbai in February. 

The Budget 2023 proposal states that if an investor makes a gain of over Rs 10 crore on selling a house then the maximum benefit she or he can avail will be up to Rs 10 crore only if the amount is invested in another property. The government will impose a tax on capital gains over Rs 10 crore from April 1, 2023.