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Akshay Burkul has spent the last decade selling homes in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, and the last four of those years exclusively in Panvel. As AVP Sales & Head of Panvel at Anarock, he has watched the corridor transform from a peripheral market into the most talked-about real estate story in the country. He has also watched the disconnect between what gets built and what actually sells. That disconnect, he says, is the real story of Panvel in 2026.
He speaks quickly, interrupts himself, and corrects his own numbers mid-sentence. He is not interested in the brochure version of the market. He is interested in what happens in the sales gallery after the site visit ends.
Q. You have been selling in Panvel for four years. What changed in that time?
The buyer changed. In 2022, the buyer was still speculative. He was buying the airport story. He was buying the bridge story. He was buying a PowerPoint. By 2024, the buyer was different. He had seen the airport open. He had seen the bridge carry traffic. He was no longer buying a promise. He was buying a commute. That is a fundamentally different sale.
Q. What does that mean for how you sell?
It means you cannot sell a narrative anymore. You have to sell a life. The buyer who walks into my office today has already done his research. He knows the price index. He knows the absorption data. He knows more about the Panvel market than most brokers. He is not asking “Will this appreciate?” He is asking “Can I live here? Is there a school? Is there a hospital? How long is the commute to my actual job?” The speculative buyer asked different questions. The end-user buyer asks the questions that matter.
Q. The market data says 91% of Panvel’s inventory is under construction. Only 9% is ready to move in. What does that tell you about how the market has been selling?
It tells you the market has been selling a timeline, not a home. And that is fine as long as the buyer understands the timeline. But most buyers in this market do not fully understand it. They see the airport is open. They see the bridge is open. They assume the city is ready. Then they book a flat that will be ready in 2029 and they are still paying rent in 2029. That is where the frustration comes from. The infrastructure arrived faster than the housing did.
Q. The unsold inventory in Panvel is around 45% of 2020–25 supply. At the same time, you are selling homes. What is the difference between what you are selling and what is sitting unsold?
The difference is price point and product. The ₹90 lakh to ₹1.2 crore segment is oversupplied. There are too many developers building the same product for the same buyer. That buyer — the investor, the NRI, the second-home buyer — is a finite pool. Once that pool is exhausted, the inventory sits. The ₹35 to ₹60 lakh segment is undersupplied. That buyer is not finite. That buyer is every household earning ₹50,000 to ₹70,000 a month in this corridor. There are lakhs of them. They have been waiting for a product that fits their income.
So the absorption problem is not a demand problem. It is a segmentation problem.
It is entirely a segmentation problem. The market built for the top 20% and then wondered why the bottom 80% did not buy. The data is very clear. 47% of Panvel’s launches are in the ₹50 lakh to ₹1 crore band. But the household earning ₹50,000 a month cannot afford that. So they rent. Or they leave. Or they stay in Kalamboli and Kamothe and commute. The demand exists. The supply does not match it.
You are saying the market misread its own buyer.
The market misread the buyer because the market was listening to the wrong signal. The signal was the airport. The signal was Atal Setu. The signal was the price index going up. Everyone assumed that if prices are going up, the buyer must be able to afford it. But prices were going up because of speculation, not because of income growth. The income of the Panvel buyer did not rise 76% in five years. The price did. That gap is the absorption problem.
Q. What is the buyer profile you are seeing on the ground today?
Household income of ₹50,000 to ₹70,000 a month. Single earning member in most cases. Late twenties to early forties. Many are first-generation buyers. The work profile is airport ground staff, logistics coordinators, transport operators, retail managers, small business owners. A significant number are already renting in Panvel or the surrounding nodes. They are not outsiders. They are already part of the local economy. They just could not buy until now.
Q. The premium market is selling a story. You are selling a product. Is there a cultural difference in how you sell?
Absolutely. The premium sale is emotional. It is about aspiration. It is about the address. The affordable sale is rational. It is about EMI. It is about commute. It is about whether the school is within walking distance. The premium buyer can be convinced by a brochure. The affordable buyer has to be convinced by arithmetic. If the arithmetic does not work, no amount of clubhouse photography will close the sale.
Q. What is the arithmetic that closes the sale?
The EMI has to be serviceable alongside rent during the construction period. That is the single biggest obstacle. A household earning ₹60,000 cannot pay ₹15,000 in rent and ₹22,000 in EMI at the same time. The math collapses. So we structure the payment plan around that reality. We do not ask the buyer to carry two housing costs at once. That is the difference between a sale and a walkout.
Q. Is that a subvention scheme?
It is not a subvention scheme in the way that term has been abused in this market. It is a payment structure that recognizes the buyer’s cash flow. The buyer owns the loan. The buyer owns the asset. We are aligning the payment schedule with the buyer’s ability to pay. That is all it is.
Q. The national data says sub- ₹50 lakh sales fell 17% in 2025. Launches fell 28%. Yet you are selling in that band. Is the data wrong?
The data is measuring the wrong thing. It is measuring what developers are launching, not what buyers want. When developers stop launching at ₹35 lakh, nothing shows up in the ₹35 lakh column. The buyer is still there. We just built for him. The data will catch up when the supply catches up. Until then, the data will keep saying affordable housing is dying while developers like us keep selling it.
Q. What is the biggest mistake the industry is making in Panvel right now?
The industry is still selling the Third Mumbai story as if it is a 2026 story. It is not. The master plan is being prepared. Land acquisition is contested. The city will take a decade to build. That is fine. But if you sell a buyer a home in 2026 by promising him a city in 2035, you are setting up a disappointment. The buyer who buys today needs to be able to live here today. The infrastructure that exists today — the airport, the bridge, the rail corridor — that is the real story. The rest is a bonus. Sell the bonus as a bonus, not as the product.
Q. What is the one thing you would tell a first-time buyer in Panvel today?
Buy the location, not the narrative. The airport is open. The bridge is open. The rail corridor is nearly complete. That is the infrastructure you can use today. The rest is coming. But do not pay today’s price for tomorrow’s infrastructure. Pay today’s price for what exists today. If the price reflects the future, you are not buying a home. You are buying a bet. And a home should not be a bet.
