India’s housing market is holding its ground, but the headline stability masks a sharper divide between cities and price bands. Across eight major urban markets, 258,238 homes were sold between January and September 2026, broadly unchanged from a year earlier, while new launches rose 4 per cent to 279,899. The widening gap between supply and absorption points to a market becoming more selective rather than simply stronger.
Mumbai remained the largest market, with 72,804 homes sold, up 1 per cent year-on-year. Bengaluru followed with 43,140 units, recording 5 per cent growth, while Pune remained broadly stable at 36,402 units. Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Kolkata also posted modest annual gains. Delhi-NCR was the clear outlier. Sales fell 11 per cent to 35,574 units, with the steepest weakness concentrated in homes priced between ₹5 crore and ₹10 crore. Sales in that band dropped 39 per cent to 4,033 units. Gurugram alone accounted for 57 per cent of NCR’s unsold stock, highlighting the uneven absorption risk within the wider region. The larger shift is visible in what buyers can afford and where demand is concentrating. Homes priced above ₹1 crore accounted for 55 per cent of sales, compared with 50 per cent a year earlier. The ₹1 crore–₹2 crore segment remained the largest, with 77,087 transactions, while sales in the ₹2 crore–₹5 crore bracket increased 19.4 per cent.
At the other end of the market, homes below ₹50 lakh saw sales decline 14 per cent to 47,660 units. The ₹50 lakh–₹1 crore segment also contracted by 5.9 per cent. This divergence raises a wider urban question: if new housing supply increasingly targets higher-value buyers, access to formal housing could become more difficult for middle- and lower-income households unless cities expand well-connected, reasonably priced options.
Supply is another pressure point. Developers have launched more homes than buyers have absorbed for 16 consecutive quarters. In the third quarter alone, sales slipped 1 per cent year-on-year to 86,767 units, against 92,549 launches. The quarters-to-sell measure also rose to 6.1, suggesting that inventory is taking longer to clear, although it remains below the levels seen during the 2018–2021 period. For India’s housing market, the next phase is therefore less about chasing headline volumes and more about matching development with real household demand. Location, transport access, employment, affordability and climate resilience will increasingly determine whether new housing becomes productive urban growth or simply adds to unused inventory.
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