Pandemic had hit every sector hard, including real estate. The sector did witness a low for sometime, but in no time, people realised the importance of bigger and improved houses and that was a push to the real estate market sentiment. However, the two recent hikes in repo rate by RBI amounting to 90 basis points has decreased the home purchasing ability of people by 2% on an average across markets.
Despite the hike, however, markets remain largely affordable. Positive sentiment towards home ownership is giving the required boost. The good news is that among the top 8 cities, Ahmedabad has emerged as the most affordable housing destination based on EMI to income ratio for an average household. The ratio for Ahmedabad stands at 22%, according to Knight Frank Affordability Index.
Faster approvals , ample floor space index, robust transport system has led Ahmedabad to be consistently featured amongst the affordable cities since 2019.
Miniature House on a Financial Graph
Among the remaining top five cities, Kolkata was the next most affordable at 27 per cent in the index for H1 2022, followed by Bengaluru (28 per cent), NCR (30 per cent), Hyderabad (31 per cent) and Mumbai (56 per cent).