NoBroker.com Survey: 73% of tenants in Delhi-NCR looking to buy a home in 2021

NoBroker.com, the world’s largest ‘peer-to-peer’ real estate portal, has identified the residential property trends that dominated the post-pandemic market in its ‘India Real Estate Report 2020’. The report revealed that almost 73% tenants in Delhi are exploring to buy a house in 2021. However, this is still lower than the national everage of 82%. Buyers in Delhi-NCR were most keen on ready-to-move-in houses (67%) and resale houses (21%) while only 12% are looking at something under construction. The city also registered the maximum number of repeat buyers (33%) from a survey conducted across Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad and Delhi-NCR.

Besides these, the following are the major property purchase trends from Delhi-NCR in 2020 as observed by NoBroker.com in its latest report:

More than 58% buyers are millennials and this is a substantial jump from previous years. This is very encouraging news for the sector as this segment has in the past few years shied away from asset creation and relied on renting.
More than half (57%) preferred buying society flats over independent houses or plots. The backdrop of the pandemic has also boosted this preference since society living provides a safer and more convenient alternative. The increasing adoption of society management apps that double up as security providers, grocery stores, rent maintenance payment gateways, etc. contributed to this shift.
Nearly 65% of people in Delhi-NCR keep Vaastu considerations in mind while making the purchase. This percentage is a spike from the last year’s figure when only 38% of buyers considered Vaastu compliance.
Around one-third (32%) of the respondents have a budget of INR 80 lacs and above.
Dwarka, Rohini, Indirapuram, Sector-24 Gurgaon, and Shahdara rounded off the top buying localities in Delhi-NCR for the year 2020.
Average prices of 2 BHKs in the region have seen an overall depreciation by 0.75% in 2020

Top rental trends

Only 8% of the tenants relied on brokers while searching for property in 2020. A majority used either real estate websites (39%) or depended on friends/relatives (35%) to conduct the search.
Security emerged as the most important amenity for 81% of tenants in Delhi-NCR, which is the highest compared with other cities. Tenants from the region also showed the most reliance on visitor and society management apps at 24% as compared to other major Indian cities. In sync with this trend, the report found that 69% of tenants preferred society accommodation over independent floors or plots.
The use of digital payment tools reigned supreme amid the pandemic. Nearly half (48%) of the tenants paid their rent through online channels or NoBroker Pay.
With the pandemic highlighting the value of owning a property as a physical asset 73% tenants said that they are exploring to buy a house in 2021. Beyond the security quotient, the drop in property prices, attractive discounts offered by builders, and the narrowing of the difference between rent amount and EMI amount amid the pandemic emerged as key factors.
The report identified Rohini, Sector-62 Noida, Sector-43 Gurgaon, Uttam Nagar, and Janakpuri as the most popular renting localities for 2020.

The human side of landlords

NoBroker.com also made an interesting observation about the behaviour of Indian landlords in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. Of the surveyed landlords in Delhi-NCR, 59% mentioned that they waived off some rent during the lockdown for the benefit of their tenants.
When it came to hosting bachelors as tenants, landlords from Delhi-NCR showed the most flexibility among their counterparts from other surveyed cities, with 32% of them expressing their willingness to rent to bachelors.

Speaking on the latest findings, Saurabh Garg, Co-Founder & CBO, NoBroker.com, said, “The role of the pandemic in shaping most of the dominant real estate trends we observed in 2020 cannot be overstated. Pandemic-induced safety concerns are driving buyers as well as tenants towards opting for society accommodation, where new-age apps are elevating the residential experience. We anticipate this trend to continue for the foreseeable future. Further, far from subduing the purchase sentiment among Indian buyers, the viral outbreak has only served to strengthen it. This is especially true for the millennial customers who, in a shift away from the ‘never settle’ lifestyle, are realizing the value of owning property as an important physical asset that ensures financial security.”

By relying on consistent innovation, NoBroker.com has emerged as a domain leader in the Indian proptech space. It helped Indians in the Delhi-NCR region save more than INR 78 crore in brokerage this year and INR 1021 crore across cities. Underscoring its mission of providing its users with safe and convenient services, the platform has also introduced several related offerings. These include packers & movers, home loans, NoBroker Pay, rental agreements, home painting and cleaning services, and NoBrokerHood society management app, among others.