Ankit Sharma

From removing a balcony to adding a half room, developers are focusing on making smaller apartments more liveable to lure home buyers.

Developers across India are downsizing homes to beat slowdown blues by offering altered smaller apartments. Features such as half rooms, open kitchen, drawing-cum-dining rooms and folding interiors are being incorporated in the residential projects in order to give maximum usage of available space to the residents.

In the last five years, seven major cities of India have witnessed a 26 per cent reduction in apartment sizes, according to a recent JLL report. Though this cut down in apartment sizes has brought properties within the budget of many home buyers, not many are comfortable living in shrunk spaces. This has created an impasse in the real estate sector with buyers holding on to their investment.

In order to overcome this deadlock, developers are bringing smart changes in the smaller apartments they have to offer, so that the buyers do not have to compromise on their comfort due to the reduced size. “Demand for smaller apartments has increased mainly due to the budget constraint of buyers. In a situation like this, apartments must be designed in such a way that are not only affordable but are liveable as well,” says Lalit Kumar Jain, Chairman and Managing Director of Kumar Urban Development Limited.

Popular modifications

Half room: The half room concept is one of the most popular in the market. Developers are offering a small room to be used as a store or extra room along with 1 and 2BHK units. These properties are being marketed as 1.5 and 2.5BHK. Some developers have removed the balconies and reduced the number of toilets/bathrooms in the apartments in order to keep the size compact.
Open kitchen/drawing cum dining area: On the other hand, open kitchen and drawing cum dining rooms are some of the well-known and accepted design concepts that are also being used. They not only allow developers to keep the apartment size small but also give buyers efficient utilization of limited space. On a similar note, few developers have started offering folding or transforming interiors not only in kitchen but also in the rooms.

While the number of amenities tend to get reduced in order to keep the construction cost low, some developers are not compromising on basic facilities along with their smaller size apartments. “The apartments in our residential project in Greater Noida West come along with all basic amenities for a modern lifestyle. To make the lives of the dwellers easy we have kept ground floor, first and second floor for the commercial purposes where buyers can avail products of daily needs,” says Anil Kumar Sharma, CMD, Amrapali Group.

At a time when global economic slowdown has unquestionably made buyers to look for affordable properties, innovative schemes like these may bring some value for money to home buyers.