“No frills, Simple homes” reads the banner hanging in the Delhi headquarters of Unitech, India’s leading property developer . It’s a mantra that has been taken up by realtors across the country with a new-found passion for affordable housing that owes little to their social conscience and everything to their bottom line. The global economic downturn ended a four-year property boom in India that had largely been driven by the luxury housing segment and saw a near three-fold increase in residential prices in major cities. Now developers are turning their attention to middle and lower income buyers and low-cost housing that offers lower profit margins but enjoys much greater demand. “We made a mistake by only focusing on the top two-three percent of India’s population,” acknowledged Unitech vice president Vikram Datta. “Now we have to reach the masses by entering into budget and affordable houses,” he said. According to a May 2009 survey by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, there is a nationwide housing shortage among lower and mid-income families of around 20 million units. With luxury housing projects struggling to find buyers, that kind of demand suddenly seems more attractive. Unitech has committed to constructing 20,000 affordable houses at a cost of 17 billion rupees (340 million dollars) by 2011 across the country, and others are following suit
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Affordable Housing Emerges as a Savior for Developers
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