Every Independence Day, we measure our country’s progress in the language of economic milestones – GDP, exports, per-capita income, and so on. Real estate rarely makes it to the headlines spotlighting India’s progress, but it is one of the most honest records of it. There are some metrics that tell us the same story from a different vantage point: what we have built, and how we have financed, governed, and occupied it.
Three decades ago, India’s organised office market was a fraction of what it is today. It was built gradually and financed largely through individual and promoter capital. Formal institutional financing for real estate was extremely limited. Parallelly, reforms such as RERA and the public listing of real estate companies have collectively made the sector transparent and investable – at scale.
Today, that same market has crossed the landmark threshold of 1 billion sq. ft. of office stock, underpinned by REITs, institutional investors, private credit, and banks. That shift, from a handful of players raising capital informally to a market now attracting record institutional inflows, is arguably the single biggest change in Indian real estate since 1947.
India’s real estate story today is no longer one story; it is several, running in parallel. The data from the first six months of this year shows that India’s core real estate sectors are capable of absorbing global shocks. In fact, they are setting records. Notably, domestic capital, not foreign, now drives the overwhelming majority of that investment. Retail leasing held its ground too, growing by a fifth year-on-year even as consumer sentiment softened under inflationary pressure. This is an economy, and a real estate sector, that has learned to navigate shocks rather than be defined by them. In the last few years, the fundamental question in commercial real estate has changed to who is occupying this space, and why. GCCs are becoming decision-making hubs for global enterprises. Alongside this, the asset classes we build have diversified well beyond offices and homes-into data centres, logistics parks, co-living and flexible workspace, warehousing and, increasingly, infrastructure itself, as airports, ports and metro corridors are opened up to private capital and development.
The office market leased approximately 45.5 million sq. ft. between January and June (H1) 2026, the strongest half-year on record, with new supply additions at an all-time high for any H1 period. The real estate segment also witnessed roughly USD 8.5 billion in capital inflows during the same period, up nearly a third year-on-year, and the strongest half-yearly performance since 2018.
None of this means the work is done. If anything, the milestones we’ve just crossed should sharpen our ambition. The key constraint has moved from financing projects to execution. And that capacity needs to be built deliberately at the municipal level, where projects are actually delivered. Ease of doing business has improved but needs to move to better practice before it can change investment decisions.
