11 small cities to see extra housing demand of 9.4 lakh units

New Delhi: Eleven small cities are likely to witness an incremental housing demand of 9.44 lakh units in next five years, property consultant Cushman & Wakefield (C&W) said on Thursday.

Surat is likely to see highest incremental residential demand among 11 cities selected in a study at 2.3 lakh units, followed by Kochi at 1.18 lakh units and Visakhapatnam at 1 lakh units.

"While the top (tier I cities) are bound to continue recording growth in residential markets arising out of their development as economic centers and emerging growth corridor within them, after years of slow growth and even stagnation in some cases, tier II and III cities too are poised to be strong drivers of demand," C&W said in a report.

The report 'Embracing Change: Exploring Growth Markets for Indian Housing' has identified 11 cities among tier II and tier III cities which could witness strong real estate demand, especially residential.

These cities exhibit a strong potential for development based on the economic activity, current and proposed infrastructure developments and expected government and private investments.

Lucknow would witness an incremental housing demand of 89,600 units, Jaipur 81,700 units, Nagpur 80,000 units, Indore 78,100 units, Coimbatore 76,000 units, Vadodra 36,600 units, Chandigarh 33,100 units and Bhubaneswar 21,600 units.

These eleven tier II and tier III cities are expected to spur housing demand, driving cumulative incremental residential demand to 9,44,700 units between 2016 and 2020.

"There is a need for developing alternate urban economic centre in India as the tier I cities may soon be exhausted in terms of infrastructure to be able to support the expected/ desired growth of India," C&W India Managing Director Anshul Jain said.

"These 11 cities are poised well to become the next growth centres owing to their inherent strengths, government initiatives and attraction of foreign and private investments, albeit over a period of 5?7 years," he added.

Jain said although these cities have some strengths, a systematic and achievable growth plan, from beefing up the infrastructure, civic infrastructure and creation of housing to stable law and order situation, has to be created by the states and the city council to achieve potential.