The India of 2025 and what effects would it have on our real estate?

2025 Real Estate, India. Image - gamerant 

Sundays are great days to discuss deep stuff. While you are out doing things at leisure, bowling with your friends, tearing down the national highways on a motorcycle or simply spending time with family, you also have time to think and organise the stray thoughts canoodling around inside your head.

We had a discussion this afternoon about what we Indians (and many other people around the world) would be making out of our lives by the year 2025. So we had some discussions and heated debates and we also jotted down some points. A few rums (Yes, Old Monk if you were going to ask) later, some of us got specific and started an in depth conversation on numerous issues. What follows is a note on India 2025 written at the drowsy end of an action Sunday. And because we get paid to do this, we remembered to insert the effects that our projected 2025 lifestyles will have on real estate in India.

We would be living longer 

According to the World Health Organization's health statistics 2011, an average Indian lived till 65 years in 2009. In comparison, an average Indian lived for 57 years in 1990 and 61 years in 2000. By 2025, Indians will catch up with the high global average of about 75 years! (Australia would be close to 82 years in 2025!).

Effect on real estate: Indians would be getting more and more focssued on saving and planning to have a better life and more leisure time for themselves post retirement. This would mean more savings in the working years and right across the slog overs if we may call it so. The home loan EMI is going to come down as having an expensive house will not really be the 'I  have arrived in life' statement. As the future gets better and people live longer, the mad rush for buying overrated homes could go down, we reckon. Builders, please start exploring affordable housing. Thank you.

Where would we be living and working?

As a major IT and ITES solutions exporter, a lot of India's work force today is living in and migrating to a selected few cities. As inflation makes us eat more egg curry (remember that popular article you read here?) and turns these selected cities into homes strictly for the upper echelons of society, the masses will work out of smaller towns and cities. Upcoming states like Bihar, Odisha, Assam, Kerala and West Bengal, which have a lot of talent migrating out these days would become the new hubs of employment. 

Effect on real estate: Cheaper real estate, newer buildings with better designs, lesser carbon footprints and more affordable homes would lure both the corporate and the employee to move to cities in the other States of India. The so called Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities would become destinations by the year 2025. Smaller builders with futuristic visions in such cities will emerge as the new faces of real estate in India. And this transition has begun!

How would we be spending our free time?

Over the past ten years there’s been a huge shift in how Indians use their leisure time largely due to the increasing influence and penetration of the internet, social media and e-commerce. In 2013, urbans Indians could spend more than 14 leisure hours online, up from 12 in 2010 (we estimate by thinking out loud) – with social media and shopping taking up most of that time, a trend we expect to continue right through to 2025.

And when we’re not online, we’ll be eating out, playing sport, hitting the gym and watching television and movies – although much of the movie will be done online via streaming and downloads. We have some fellows in our office who are already watching 80% of their movies by hogging the office internet bandwidth! (Hey where is that IT bloke we had called for to block all the torrent websites - Kaushik)

Effect on real estate: The guys at Jadong and Flipitykart of 2025 would be laughing all the way to the bank. Retailers would have pumped in crazy amounts of money to sort out their web presence and that would mean fewer property leases and lesser malls. Catalogue shopping would be in vogue. Experience centres, rather than plain Jane multiplexes and game arcades would be making more money and consuming more real estate. In one line, anything real estate that gives the 2025 Indian a genuine reason to get out of home would work. The rest, would be in the recycle bin. #justsaying?

What will we be eating?

One clear trend both today and looking ahead is a growing preference for ethically and sustainably produced meats, eggs and dairy (free range meats, poultry, eggs), while organic and local produce continues to rise in popularity and penetration. While we have traditionally considered ourselves a country of kebabs, biryani and roll lovers, consumption of vegetarian meals is certainly a growing trend in all parts of India.

After battling out 25 rupee meals and 20 rupee hilarious menus, large food chains that sell the fried stuff, (the oil they use to fry can use some carbon dating you know) would mostly be doing healthy bakes and salads! Healthy world cuisine would be in. You would have the Outer Mongolian and the Morocco eateries by then we guess.

Effect on real estate: This is a little dicey and a lot more debatable but we think that large quick service diners which serve fast and junk food would be history by 2025 or would have converted into smaller and healthier food selling chains. Some of us ate out everyday a decade ago when we started working and now we tell our daughters that eating out is strictly a once a week and an unhealthy affair, so you can see the awareness setting in already. Real estate space would be consumed in 2025 by the organic food sellers, processed food producers and cafes. Instead of large retail outlets, there would be investments into temperature controlled warehousing and delivery chains. Also in other news, 500 inch LED TVs would not be needed in 2025 to sell a zero nutrition, burger, fries and cola meal!

We promptly created a tag called 'real estate future' today and that means that this discussion is going to continue as and when we have a great Sunday like today. A Sunday full of animated talk and brave topics like this one, albeit, with a little dutch courage added.

Cheers!

About the author

Rahul Mishra is a real estate professional who started his life as a salesman, selling homes in the city of Kolkata since 2001. He worked pan India in real estate organisations like MMG Realty, Bengal Shrachi, The Phoenix Mills and The Space Group before helping co found Pillars with a single objective - To make real estate easy!

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