Across the world, millennials millennials Millennials Anyone born between 1981 and 1996 is considered a millennial not being able to afford anything—vehicles, diamonds, homes, babies, matrimony—is now a long-running joke. Blame the avocado toast avocado toast Huffpost Numbers Prove Millennials Don't Actually Love Avocados That Much Read more . Indian millennials, though, are seemingly making the best of it. They’re seen as financially prudent prudent Mint Indian millennials are financially prudent: Survey Read more , they have wealth management strategies strategies The Hindu Businessline Indian millennials step up wealth-management strategy to prepare for future: Report Read more , and as of a few months ago, some of them were even on the market for the one thing that they thought they could never afford—homes.
Data from real estate services company ANAROCK suggests that those under the age of 35 formed over 30% of those serious about buying homes in India in the second half of 2021. This is much higher than the negligible share that a similar demography of buyers had in the early 2000s.
Their interest is in tandem with how the real estate market has performed over the last few years. According to a report in Business Standard last week, record home sales spurred a 20-50% hiring surge hiring surge Business Standard Record home sales spur 20-50% hiring surge at listed realty firms in H2FY22 Read more at listed realty firms in the half-year ended March 2022.
Some of this could partly be attributed to the aftermath of the pandemic. India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, slashed interest rates to spur growth, while governments of states such as Maharashtra and Karnataka rolled out incentives on stamp duty and other charges.
Shifts in working patterns—work-from-home and work-from-hometown—also increased the demand for bigger houses. The market saw a revival and that has continued so far into 2022.
But India’s real estate market had begun changing long before the pandemic. Between the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) Act, demonetisation demonetisation Demonetisation Stripping a currency unit of its status as legal tender.
