After the post-pandemic slump in demand, unsold inventory in the affordable housing segment in the top seven cities dropped by 19 per cent in the first quarter of the 2025 calendar year (Q1CY25), according to a report by real estate consultancy firm Anarock.
The report states that unsold inventory in the segment fell from 140,000 units at the end of Q1 2024 to 113, 000 units at the end of Q1 2025.
Among the top seven cities, Bengaluru led the recovery, recording a steep 51 per cent drop in unsold affordable stock from 6,736 units in Q1 2024 to 3,323 units in Q1 2025.
It was followed by Chennai with a 44 per cent drop in unsold affordable units, and Pune at 28 per cent.
Only Hyderabad saw a 9 per cent increase in unsold inventory in the affordable segment.
This comes even as affordable housing (priced at less than Rs 40 lakh) had taken a hit after the Covid-19 pandemic, with buyers in this segment adopting a cautious approach, and new supply and sales plummeting in recent years.
Anarock Group Chairman Anuj Puri said affordable housing faced the sharpest pandemic fallout, with sales share plummeting from 38 per cent in 2019 to 18 per cent in 2024 and supply share dropping from 40 per cent to 16 per cent in the same period.
He added that a dip in unsold stock hinted at sustained demand led by end users.
A 10 per cent drop was also recorded in the mid-sized segment — units priced between Rs 40 lakh and Rs 80 lakh — with unsold units falling from 174,572 at end of Q1 2024 to 157,741 in the period under review.
In contrast, luxury housing units — those priced over Rs 1.5 crore, saw a 24 per cent surge in unsold stock, rising from 91,125 units at end of Q1 2024 to over 113,000 units in Q1 2025, fuelled by robust demand and inventory pile up.
“The segment saw unsold inventory piling up due to increased supply and cautious investor sentiment amid the ongoing global economic uncertainty,” Puri said.
Anarock data says that luxury housing had soared after the pandemic with its sales share rising from 7 per cent in 2019 to 26 per cent in 2024, and new supply share doubling from 11 per cent to 26 per cent.
Puri added that the buildup of stock in luxury housing, which has been the top-performing segment in the past two to three years, is largely due to significant supply additions in the last one to two years.
Among the top seven cities, Kolkata and the National Capital Region (NCR) saw the highest rise in unsold luxury inventory, at 96 per cent and 78 per cent, respectively.
It was followed by Bengaluru, which saw a 57 per cent surge in unsold luxury units.
Only Chennai and Pune saw their unsold luxury stock declining in the period, by 4 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively.
As of Q1 2025-end, a cumulative total of around 559,808 units were unsold across the top 7 cities.
“Of this, around 112,744 units fall in the affordable housing category, whereas the luxury segment has around 113,193 unsold units,” the Anarock report stated.
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