Homebuyer Survey Statistics India 2026: What Buyers Want, by the Numbers

Which homebuyer surveys matter, and how big are they?

Six surveys from 2025 and 2026 do most of the work here, and they ask different people different questions. Anarock's twice-yearly Consumer Sentiment Survey is the largest, with 8,320 respondents in H1 2026. Knight Frank and Colliers run smaller annual buyer surveys. Magicbricks tracks prospective buyers on its platform. Knight Frank and NAREDCO poll developers, banks and funds rather than buyers. India Sotheby's surveys rich families.

Read any single survey with its sample in mind. An online survey of portal users is not a census, and the people answering an HNI survey are not the people answering a mass-market one. Where surveys disagree, as they do on ready versus under-construction homes, we show both.

Preferred configuration: 2BHK or 3BHK?

3BHK is now the default. In Anarock's H1 2026 survey 48% of respondents wanted a 3BHK and 38% a 2BHK, up from 45% and down from 40% respectively a year earlier. Colliers gets a similar answer from a different angle: 62% want a 2 or 3 BHK.

City splits are sharp. Delhi-NCR is near the top at 53% preferring 3BHK, alongside Chennai, with Ahmedabad highest at 57%. Mumbai is the outlier at 39%, which reflects Mumbai prices more than Mumbai tastes. Anarock's H1 2026 coverage puts 4BHK-plus demand at nearly 5%; its H1 2025 report had put it close to 7%, so treat that segment's trend as noisy.

For Gurgaon, where most new launches are 3 and 4BHK, this is the demand profile developers are building for.

What budget are Indian homebuyers looking at?

The ₹90 lakh to ₹1.5 crore bracket is now the most popular, chosen by 34% of Anarock's H1 2026 respondents, with another 27% looking above ₹1.5 crore. A year earlier the same bracket drew 36%, homes of ₹45 to ₹90 lakh drew 25%, and only 17% wanted an affordable home under ₹45 lakh. Back in H2 2020, over 40% of respondents wanted a home under ₹45 lakh.

Colliers frames its band more widely: 46% of its 2026 respondents prefer ₹50 lakh to ₹1.5 crore. In Gurgaon, Anarock's H1 2025 survey put the typical 2BHK budget at ₹90 lakh to ₹1.3 crore, against an average rate of ₹11,000 per sq ft, the highest in NCR in that table.

Price worries are widespread but not paralysing. In H1 2026, 65% of Anarock respondents were worried about further price rises; 44% said they would go ahead anyway and 38% might delay a little. In Magicbricks' August 2026 index, 69% expect prices to stay flat or rise no more than 5% over the next year.

Ready-to-move or under-construction: what do buyers prefer?

This is where surveys disagree most. Anarock finds the ready-to-move share collapsing: 46% preferred ready homes in H1 2020, 32% in H1 2021, 20% in H1 2024, 16% in H1 2025 and 18% in H1 2026, when 34% preferred new launches. Knight Frank's 2025 survey agrees: 67% prefer under-construction, 17% ready-to-move, 14% pre-launch and just 2% resale.

Colliers, polling about 1,800 buyers in 2026, finds the opposite, with over 60% favouring ready or near-completion homes. Its age split helps explain the gap: about half of buyers under 30 are comfortable with construction risk, against 36% of those over 30. Sample mix and question wording drive these answers.

NCR stands out in Knight Frank's data. Only 44% of NCR buyers prefer under-construction, well below the 67% national figure, but 39% are willing to buy at pre-launch or introductory launch stage. That matches what we see in Gurgaon: launch-day queues for branded projects alongside steady demand for completed stock.

Why Indians buy homes: end use, upgrade or investment

Most buyers are buying to live in. Anarock's H1 2026 survey found 68% purchasing for self-use, up from 65% in H1 2025. Colliers' 2026 figure is 51% self-use, with 16% planning a second or vacation home.

Knight Frank breaks motive down more finely. Upgrading to a better home led at 37%, first-time end-use followed at 32%, investment at 25% and other reasons, such as retirement or a second home, at 7%. NCR was one of the strongest first-time buyer markets at 42%. Only 74% of NCR respondents preferred owning over renting, against 80% nationally, which Knight Frank puts down to high prices and a large young migrant workforce.

On what drives the choice of project, Knight Frank's buyers ranked location first (50%), then size and layout (45%), affordability (45%) and builder reputation (43%). In Anarock's H1 2026 survey, developer reputation came top for new-launch buyers at 34%.

Consumer sentiment in real estate: where it stands in 2026

Buyer sentiment is positive but cooler. Magicbricks' Housing Sentiment Index was 112 in August 2026, comfortably above the neutral 100. Anarock's H1 2025 survey found 63% of respondents naming real estate the best asset class, ahead of stocks at 22% and gold at 7%.

The industry is gloomier than buyers. The Knight Frank-NAREDCO current sentiment score slipped to 48 in Q2 2026, below the neutral 50, while the six-month outlook held at 50. Developers scored 51, while banks and funds rose to 53. The share of stakeholders expecting weaker residential demand fell to 45% from 52% the previous quarter, so the mood is stabilising rather than sliding.

Luxury and NRI buyer intent

The NRI figure needs care: it comes from a remittance platform's survey of existing NRI owners, mostly people who bought in the 2010s, so it describes sellers monetising old purchases rather than fresh buying intent. We have not found a large 2025 or 2026 survey of NRI purchase intent with a published sample, and we would rather leave that gap than fill it with an old number.

• 67% of HNI and UHNI respondents are bullish on India's growth over the next 12 to 24 months (India Sotheby's International Realty survey, 2026). (The Realty Today)
• 53% of wealthy buyers are buying luxury homes as an investment and 47% for self-use (India Sotheby's, 2026). (The Realty Today)
• 46% of HNI respondents show interest in farmhouses as second homes, and 33% in hill destinations (India Sotheby's, 2026). (The Realty Today)
• 27% of Anarock's H1 2026 respondents are looking at homes priced above ₹1.5 crore. (Business Today)
• 46% of NRI property owners surveyed by Remittor plan to sell an Indian property immediately, and 26% within six months (2026; sample size not disclosed). (Business Today)