India’s residential market recorded 258,238 unit sales across its eight largest cities during the first nine months of 2026, matching the same period a year earlier. Developers introduced 279,899 units, a 4% increase, indicating supply is outpacing demand.
Launches outpace sales for the 16th quarter
In the July-September window, sales slipped 1% year-on-year to 86,767 units, while new launches rose 4% to 92,549. The surplus of launches over sales now stands at roughly 21,700 units, marking the 16th straight quarter of this imbalance.
Regional performance varies
Sales in the National Capital Region (NCR) fell 11% to 35,574 units, the only major market in decline. The remaining seven cities together posted a modest 2% rise. Mumbai stayed the largest market with 72,804 units sold, a 1% gain and the highest nine-month volume since 2018.
In Mumbai, launches reached 72,673 units, up 13%. Bengaluru posted 43,140 sales, a 5% increase, while Pune’s 36,402 units were broadly unchanged. Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Kolkata each grew between 2% and 4%.
Shift toward higher-price homes
Units priced above ₹1 crore comprised 55% of sales, up from 50% a year earlier. The share of homes below ₹50 lakh dropped to 18% from 22%.
The ₹2-5 crore segment led growth, expanding 19.4% to 51,501 units. The ₹1-2 crore band remained the largest, accounting for 30% of sales with 77,087 units. Sales below ₹50 lakh fell 14% to 47,660 units.
Demand is increasingly concentrating in premium brackets, reflecting buyers’ willingness to invest in higher-value properties. This trend aligns with developers’ focus on projects that promise better returns, as lower-priced inventory sees slower absorption.
The NCR’s ₹5-10 crore segment weakened, with sales down 39% to 4,033 units against 5,002 launches. Gurugram alone holds 57% of the region’s unsold stock in this tier, while the ₹2-5 crore range continued to expand across most major markets.
Quarters-to-sell, a measure of how long existing inventory would last at current sales rates, rose to 6.1 in the latest quarter from 5.8 a year earlier. This marks the fourth consecutive increase, though it remains below the 7-11 quarters recorded between 2018 and 2021.
Price growth was recorded in every tracked city. Bengaluru’s average price rose 11% year-on-year, partly due to a higher-priced stock entering its inventory-weighted average. Other non-NCR markets saw price gains ranging from 3% to 6%.
“The market is entering a more selective phase, where quality and relevance of supply will matter as much as the strength of demand,” said Shishir Baijal, chairman and managing director of Knight Frank India. He described the shift toward higher ticket sizes and the gradual rise in quarters-to-sell as normalization rather than a broad slowdown.
“Bengaluru continues to stand out in the national residential market, with moderate growth in homes sold and launches,” noted Suresh H. A., managing director of Sanjeevini Group. He highlighted the city’s employment, infrastructure and end-user demand as drivers of its resilience, especially in the ₹1-5 crore segment.
“The 9M CY2026 numbers indicate that the residential market is moving through a phase of consolidation rather than losing its underlying momentum,” said Lalit Parihar, managing director of Aaiji Group. He pointed to stable national volumes, a 4% rise in launches and continued demand for higher-value housing as signs of a constructive outlook.
Macroeconomic conditions remain supportive, with GDP growth of 7.8% in April-June, above the RBI’s 7% projection, and the repo rate steady at 5.25%. Knight Frank noted that monetary policy is no longer adding momentum, but the overall environment still backs the market.
