Irrespective of the benefits provided by fully-furnished properties, they are not everyone’s preferred choice to buy or rent. Echoing similar sentiments, in Q1 2022, online search trends put forward a few different emerging trends. Have a look!
Background:
The Indian housing market has changed to a great extent in the past few years. And so did the preferences of homebuyers at large. Several new market-defining trends have emerged, where now more people are looking for furnished homes rather than opting for unfurnished ones. Apart from it, a major chunk of buyers in the top six cities can be seen opting for the middle ground in the housing context by zeroing down on deals for semi-furnished units.
To gauge the prevailing sentiments of homebuyers concerning the furnishing trends, at Square Yards we carried out a city-wise analysis of how the demand for homes have changed across the top six cities based solely on this facet. Let’s delve into the findings to know more about what homebuyers are searching for.
Varying Preferences for Furnishing Status Across Top Cities
Here’s what the people in the top six cities prefer when it comes to the furnishing status of residential property units. Was it semi-furnished apartments or fully furnished apartments which piqued homebuyers interest? Listed are the delineated city wise trends from furnishing status per se.
Bengaluru: Grounded in its excellent international and domestic connectivity, continually growing smart infrastructure and rising number of IT hubs, no wonder Bengaluru bears the crowned title of the Silicon Valley of India. Additionally, along with IT, the growth of other allied sectors has also reshaped the city as a promising investment destination over the years.
Be it for the commercial segment or housing segment, the city has witnessed noteworthy realty growth, attracting major developers to create beautiful and tech-enabled properties. Given that most of the homebuyers are working professionals and a large influx witnessed in the first quarter of 2022, about 57% of the total online searches recorded in the city were for semi-furnished units.
This was distantly followed by the demand share for furnished homes which stood at 25%. While most searched locations for semi-furnished homes were RT Nagar, Manyata Tech Park, Ramamurthy Nagar, Begur and Koramangala, for furnished housing units, people searched for homes in localities, namely Ittamadu, Horamavu, Koramangala and Srirampura.
Hyderabad: While the ‘City of Nizams’ remains the most affordable housing market among the top six cities, undoubtedly it has ample scope for growth in the future. Attributed to major corporate giants entering the city and expanding their footprint, Hyderabad can be expected to scale up significantly in the upcoming months as well.
Unlike other top cities, in Hyderabad, the niche home buyers segment is majorly dominated by affordable and mid-segment residential properties. In the context of furnishing preferences in Hyderabad, nearly 63% of online searches were recorded for unfurnished units, followed by 24% demand for furnished homes. While Banjara Hills, Abids, Begumpet, Jubilee Hills and Alwal remained the most searched locations for furnished homes, Chandrayangutta, Attapur, Nagaram and Boduppal were among the locations where home buyers looked for unfurnished units.
The spike in demand for unfurnished units in Hyderabad, however, can also be attributed to the relatively inflated costs that one has to incur with fully furnished and semi-furnished units. It can also be due to investors’ general preference where they are eyeing the residential properties as an investment avenue rather than for end-use purposes.
Gurugram: Last year (2021), Gurugram witnessed the return of several first-time home buyers and end-users. Even though the city was struggling with the second wave of the pandemic, the easy availability of low-cost loans, discounts offered by developers, and SOPs introduced by the government catalysed the revival of the housing market.
Surprisingly, the city witnessed higher demand for larger houses and more home buyers looked for semi-furnished apartments. According to the Square Yards data, noting a small rise of 3% as compared to Q4, 2021, close to 80% of the online searches were recorded for semi-furnished apartments. Unfurnished and furnished units in Gurugram on the other hand attracted a mere demand share of 14% and 7%, respectively.
Noida: Like Gurugram, in Noida as well the preference for semi-furnished apartments was in vogue. Revealing a clear diversion from the homebuyers’ preferences observed in the past few quarters, the data trends in the first quarter of 2022 showed that about 70% of the buyers searched for semi-furnished units. This rise however can be reasoned on numerous grounds.
Adding on, the most searched locations were Sector 79, Sector 62, and Sector 45 in Noida, clearly indicating the growing preference for semi-furnished units among people looking for homes in proximity to tech/corporate hubs. On the other hand, demand for unfurnished units stood at 21%, whereas only 9% of the homebuyers searched for fully furnished homes.
Pune: In the last five years, the Pune housing market has evolved a lot and has been influenced by several factors. The most prominent factors were demonetisation, GST implementation, and waivers introduced by the government, which created a slight stir within the realty market.
Adding more feathers to its crown, such as the impressive infrastructure, and a few major projects in the pipeline, the city has witnessed a huge rise in demand for residential units. However, despite being relatively affordable as compared to the burgeoning property prices in MMR, the trends for furnished units remained quite similar.
As per the online search trends, in Pune more than half of the searches were noted for unfurnished units, followed by 36% demand for semi-furnished units. The earlier finding clearly corroborated the higher preference among people shown for unfurnished units as compared to any other category.
Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR): Home to a plethora of high-rise buildings reflecting an uber-luxury lifestyle, MMR demonstrated similar trends seen in the previous quarters, in Q1 2022 registering a lion’s share of 55% online searches for unfurnished units.
This inclination could have been influenced by different reasons, the major one being the exorbitant prices attached to the residential units, which are only expected to go up amidst rising property prices and lending rates. On the other hand, availability of semi-furnished/unfurnished units at relatively affordable prices placed such residential units as more lucrative to prospective homebuyers.
From a location perspective, for unfurnished units, the most searched locations include Vangani, Shelu, Andheri East and Naigaon East in MMR. Semi-furnished units on the other hand, comprised 32% of the total online searches and most searched locations for the same category featured Dombivali West, Nalasopara West, Kalyan West and Vasai West regions.
Are These Trends Transitory or The One Reshaping The Markets?
While no matter which way demand trends are swayed, it is often observed that except for a small section of buyers, the idea of opting for fully furnished units has never appealed to a large section of home buyers. Despite fully furnished apartments entailing several benefits, often such units are usually more expensive and offer very little or no options for buyers to customise the units as per their desires. That’s why the demand for semi-furnished units has gone up significantly in the past few years.
Looking at the emerging trends, housing markets are quite reflective of the notion where buyers these days are interested in properties that are cost-effective and offer them some inbuilt bulky installations such as wardrobe, wooden floorings, etc,. However, at the same time home buyers also look forward to customising their dream abodes as per individual’s taste and choice. Emanating from these sentiments, undoubtedly, semi-furnished apartments can be expected to become home buyers’ preferred choice on a large scale for the next quarters as well.
