Biz families of Tier-II cities drive-up ultra luxury residential demand in North & West India

Ultra-luxury residential projects in Gurgaon and premium plotted developments of North and West India – are witnessing active buyer interest from business families or promoter groups based out of Tier-II towns, which include Bhubaneswar, Kanpur, Ayodhya, Darjeeling, among others.

For instance, ‘The Dahlias’ – realty major DLF’s upcoming super-luxury residential project in Gurgaon with units priced upwards of ₹80 crore – is witnessing active buyer interest from some of these Tier-II city-based business families.

Similarly, the House of Abhinandan Lodha, known for their plotted development projects (bungalows and villas), has seen interest from businessmen based out of Darjeeling to invest in projects at Anjarle, the Konkan belt in Maharashtra.

Ayodhya, in Uttar Pradesh, is also generating substantial interest from businessmen in Vadodara, Ahmedabad and Kanpur.

Gurgaon – NCR story

According to Aakash Ohri, Joint MD, DLF Ltd, “a lot of people in Tier 2 cities or even Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai” and have started to invest in Delhi. “And I’m seeing a lot of demand (and sales) in the recent Camellias – the other super-luxury project…. including Kanpur and Bhubaneshwar and everywhere, which I feel is also driving the Dahlias’ demand,” he said during a recent post result investor call.

The DLF top-brass has already expressed confidence in The Dahlias, formal approvals for which was received in October and is now pegged among the costliest projects in the Delhi – NCR region.

According to Ohri, the expression of interest for the project has been good with nearly 9 per cent of the unit value being received as part of the EoIs. “We’ve got good EOIs. They’re all backed with instruments which are already banked. Money is in the account,” he said adding the sales booking number for Dahlias will be reflected in Q3 (Oct – Dec) FY25 numbers.

Sources in DLF said, there have been “qualified leads” – for Dahlias – across promoter-families in eastern States, specially those into hospitality, steel and manufacturing and FMCG.

Speaking on demand, Ohri said: “It is no more a geographic development….there’s no more a south-north kind of a divide. I have seen super luxury, including our projects in Goa and of course, Camellias, it has been pan-India.”

Gurgaon and the National Capital Region (NCR) has already caught the fancy of most real estate investors, even internationally, with luxury and super-luxury projects becoming popular. DLF’s NRI business – once pegged at 3 per cent of sales – has now grown at 28 per cent.

“(The) NRI business has grown from 3 to about 28 per cent this year,” Ohri said.

According to Gaurav Pandey, MD and CEO, Godrej Properties, periphery markets of Gurgaon may not see much of price action, apart from Golf Course Road – the premiere location there.

“We’ve noticed right now that there is strong price growth especially in markets like NCR and Begalururu. In fact, if I were to just give a price stack up order, Gurgaon is seeing very robust growth over the last 2 year and continued even this year. Next would be Bengaluru, then Noida,” he said during an investor call.

Plotted Development

The other big draw are plotted development – residential, villas and bungalows – complete with amenities like clubs and so on.

“We have customers from all over the country including small towns investing in plots across the country as ours is a virtual only model, where one does not visit the location physically,” said Abhinandan Lodha, Chairman, House of Abhinandan Lodha.

The company has projects at 9 locations that include five in Maharashtra, one in Ayodhya and three in Goa.