Indian Cricketer Shreyas Iyer and mother Rohini Iyer were in the news for having purchased a 525 sq ft apartment for ₹2.90 crore in Mumbai’s Worli area earlier this month. Iyer is not the only homebuyer or investor to have bought a 500 sq ft flat in the financial capital.
Incidentally, almost 33% of the monthly apartment sales in the city are for apartments below 500 sq ft, according to industry data.
Shreyas Iyer has bought a 525 sq ft apartment on the second floor of Triveni Industrial CHSL in the Adarsh Nagar area of Worli, according to the documents accessed by Zapkey
In July 2024, Iyer purchased a commercial property in the Worli area for ₹2.9 crore measuring 510 sq ft, documents accessed by Propstack had shown. In August 2024, Kangana Ranaut, a BJP MP and Bollywood actor was in the news for purchasing an office space in Mumbai’s Andheri area for ₹1.56 crore measuring 407 sq ft.
In May 2024, Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan had bought six apartments for ₹15.42 crore in the Oberoi Sky City, a luxury project by Oberoi Realty in Borivali area of Mumbai.
Out of the six apartments, two apartments measure 252 sq ft and are spread across an area of around 1,100 sq ft (carpet). The size of the remaining two units is 1094 sq ft, according to the property registration documents accessed by Zapkey.
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So why do real estate developers sell apartments measuring 500 sq ft and less?
Often when developers purchase industrial land, one of the conditions that they have to abide with is to construct affordable units. This is one of the reasons why several developers construct a mix of small and large apartments, architects told HT.com.
In several cases like that of Abhishek Bachchan, smaller apartments are merged with bigger apartments and sold as jodi apartments.
According to real estate consultants, out of the total monthly sales in Mumbai real estate market, close to almost half of the sales is for apartments in the range of 500 sq ft to 1,000 sq ft, followed by the second highest of under 500 sq ft.
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“Apartments of 500 sq ft and below were dominant in the Mumbai real estate market prior to Covid-19 pandemic. These are not common anymore. Such units are found in suburban pockets where affordability becomes an important factor. Going forward, as sales cool down and apartments start becoming expensive even in suburban locations, developers might start launching 500 sq ft 2 BHK apartments,” said Ritesh Mehta, Senior Director, and Head (North and West), residential services and developer initiative, JLL India.
“These apartments are usually low maintenance and the majority of homebuyers who purchase 1 BHK or 2BHK units are first time homebuyers. Even today 1 BHK apartments are usually of sizes ranging from 380 sq ft to 425 sq ft. Though the number of 1 BHK launches is lesser now, 1 BHK apartments are known to be below 500 sq ft,” added Mehta.
In Mumbai real estate market, of the total apartment sales in August 2024, 33% were for apartments below 500 sq ft, 49% in 500 to 1,000 sq ft, 15% in 1,000 to 1,500 sq ft and 3% are above 2,000 sq ft, according to the data by Knight Frank India, a real estate consultancy.
Also Read: Mumbai records 11,735 property registrations in August 2024; stamp duty collections hit ₹1072 crore
On an average, Mumbai real estate market registers 10,000 to 12,000 units on a monthly basis. In August 2024, there was an 8% year-on-year increase in property registrations in August 2024 with the number rising to 11,735 from 10,902 a year earlier, according to the data shared by the Inspector General of Registration and Controller of Stamps of Maharashtra.
