Luxury housing constitutes 2-3% of the total residential market in Pune. There are currently around 2000+ units on the market, including planned and under construction projects, within the price bracket of Rs. 4 crore and above.
The drivers for luxury housing in Pune are higher disposable incomes on the heels of a burgeoning IT / ITEs services sector, overall business prosperity, rising aspirations and the trend of shifting from standalone buildings such as bungalows to luxury flats, as these offer greater security, enhanced social life, better amenities and central facilities maintenance.
The buyers for luxury housing in Pune are the C suite of the city’s leading corporates, high-level executives from the city’s IT and non-IT MNCs, the more successful entrepreneurial segment, NRIs returning to Pune and also investors and end users from Mumbai.
The hottest locations for luxury housing in Pune are Kalyani Nagar, Koregaon Park, Magarpatta, Boat Cub Road, Prabhat Road, Sahakarnagar, Salisbury Park, Model Colony, Bhosale Nagar, Sopan Baug, Erandawane and the Aundh-Baner corridor. The price bracket for luxury properties in these locations ranges between Rs. 12000-20000/sqft. The typical size of a luxury home in Pune starts at 3000 square feet and can go up to 7000 square feet (salable area).
In Pune, luxury housing is still an evolving segment in terms of technical aspects and specifications when compared to the corresponding markets in cities like Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi. However, buyers have the benefit of larger sizes for the same price when compared to these far more expensive cities.
Pune’s luxury housing segment is currently not moving at optimal pace as buyers have a multitude of choices. Only the best projects see fast success. It can also be stated that the Pune luxury housing market is on the verge of a supply overhang situation.
The challenges this segment faces in Pune is borderline oversupply, saturation of the most popular areas, and an increasing infrastructure problem. Most luxury housing locations in Pune have peaked out and prices have remained stagnant for the last two years. Investor activity has decreased marginally. That said, most buyers of luxury housing in Pune today are end users and therefore not taking an investor’s view.