Property consultant Cushman & Wakefield today projected an additional urban housing demand of 13 million units in the country by end of 2018, of which nearly one-fourth would be in the country's top eight cities.
This is in addition to the already existing unmet demand, it added.
Acccording to the Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation's 2012 estimates, housing shortages was around 18.78 million units in the entire country.
"Total new demand for urban housing in India is expected to be nearly 13 million units by the end of 2018 on account of the burgeoning population in urban centres," C&W said in a statement.
Of the total additional demand, the top 8 cities are likely to constitute 23 per cent or 2.95 million units, the consultant said.
Supply is estimated at 1.31 million homes in these eight cities -- Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Hyderabad.
MIG (middle income group) is expected to generate the highest volume of demand of 1.08 million units, followed by the lower income group (LIG) at nearly 1.05 million units, and the HIG (high income group) 0.52 million units.
Delhi-NCR is expected to witness the highest demand of around 8,18,600 units across all segments during 2014-2018.
Good employment opportunities along with a large geographical spread leads to massive housing demand in the national capital region.
On supply side, the consultant said the expected supply of residential units, including existing under construction and planned pipeline is estimated to be 1.31 million housing units across the top eight cities by the end of 2018.
Delhi-NCR is likely to have the highest supply of around 5,16,000 units delivered in the next five years, followed by Bengaluru with around 2,43,000 units and Mumbai with 2,03,000 units.
Commenting on the report, C&W Executive Managing Director South Asia Sanjay Dutt said: "The private sector housing has been grappling many issues such as rising input costs, expensive land valuations, outdated building norms, restricted access to funding, serious delays in regulatory processes and uncertain economic conditions resulting in poor and/or slow sales volumes, all of which have resulted in holding back the growth of this sector since the last 2-3 years."
Consequently, he said, the demand-supply imbalances across cities have been becoming more pronounced.
