Impact of COVID-19 on Residential Realty and Affordable Housing
Aditya Kushwaha, director and CEO, Axis Ecorp, also agrees that the luxury and residential segments will emerge as gainers, once the pandemic is over. People who have been living in rental houses have started to think about owning their own space. This is driving sales in affordable housing, which has performed well in the past, as well. Apart from this, the luxury segment is booming. The luxury housing sector had shown a marginal increase in 2020, as compared to 2019.
“With the work-from-anywhere concept setting in post-pandemic, the commercial real estate segment has been hit the most. Companies that had office space on rent or lease looked at it as another expense that they could cut back on. An August 2020 report suggested that 6.3 million sq ft of office space was surrendered in Bengaluru alone and other cities in India posted similar trends.
Even as the vaccination drive picks up pace, it will be a while till offices have their entire workforce under their roof and this would continue to hurt this segment for the rest of the year and even beyond,” says Kushwaha.
