3,294 acres acquired since Jan 2022 for residential projects: JLL report

Tier-II and -III cities accounted for 44.4% (1,461 acres) of the total land area transacted in the country

Around 3,294 acres of land had been acquired by real estate developers in the country between January 2022 and October 2023 for residential projects, according to a Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) report.

At 1,461 acres (4.4 per cent), a substantial chunk of these transactions took place in Tier-II and -III cities across 17 deals. The report further said that Panipat, Ludhiana, Nagpur, and Panchkula were the leading centres in terms of total land area transacted in Tier-II and -III cities; they accounted for around 75 per cent of the total.

"Out of these 1,461 acres of land, around 1,339 acres (91.6 per cent) are earmarked for proposed residential projects, with a development potential of around 64 million sq ft," the report said. The land transactions for plotted developments are valued at Rs 3,163 crore.

Real estate players have seen success in these cities. "For example, DLF’s first project in Panipat sold out within an hour of its launch; Godrej Properties was able to sell Phase-I of its plotted development project in Sonipat within two days of its launch. In South India, plotted residential projects were launched in cities like Ambur, Mahabalipuram, Coimbatore, Trichy, and Mysuru," the report said.

Samantak Das, chief economist and head of research and REIS, India, JLL, said: “Strategic land acquisitions by real estate developers in Tier-II and -III cities to enter new markets and leverage the rising demand for quality projects is on the rise. The trend of launching plotted developments and low-rise apartments is specifically prevalent in these cities. In the last 22 months, these land transactions for proposed plotted developments were locked with a value of over Rs 3,163 crore. The launch of new residential projects is expected to strengthen further through new land acquisitions in strategic locations and growth corridors.”