The land acquisitions trend across reflects a shift towards a more cautious, strategic and opportunity-driven approach to real estate development.
It shows developers are increasingly prioritising the quality of land parcels over the scale of acquisition. Factors such as location, connectivity, development potential, land pricing and expected demand are becoming central to investment decisions. The growing adoption of Joint Development Agreements (JDAs) highlights the industry’s preference for capital-efficient development models. Rather than committing substantial capital towards outright land purchases, developers are exploring partnerships that allow them to manage financial exposure while pursuing viable projects.
This changing investment approach also creates an opportunity for Tier-2 cities to emerge as alternative growth destinations for real estate developers. These markets offer opportunities to acquire strategically located land parcels, develop projects at relatively competitive entry costs and cater to an expanding base of homebuyers and businesses.
Going forward, we expect land acquisition strategies to become more decentralised, with developers increasingly evaluating emerging cities alongside established metropolitan markets. The focus, however, will remain on locations backed by genuine economic activity, infrastructure visibility and sustainable end-user demand.
Developers are increasingly prioritising parcels with strong connectivity, established social infrastructure, clear development potential and sustainable demand prospects. The growing preference also indicates that developers are becoming more conscious of capital deployment and project-level risks.
In Bengaluru, this trend is particularly relevant as the city’s growth continues to be driven by its technology ecosystem, GCC expansion, infrastructure development and steady end-user housing demand. Bengaluru remains among the country’s leading land markets. However, the focus is increasingly shifting towards strategically located parcels along established and emerging growth corridors rather than large-scale speculative acquisitions. JDAs offer developers an opportunity to access well-positioned land parcels while optimising upfront capital commitments. Going forward, we expect land transactions to remain selective, with developers favouring locations that offer a clear demand pipeline, infrastructure visibility and the potential for timely project execution.
Ahmedabad presents an interesting case within this national trend highlighting the impact of a few large transactions on the city’s overall acquisition numbers and reflecting the availability of sizeable development opportunities in select growth pockets. With Ahmedabad benefiting from infrastructure expansion, industrial development, improving connectivity and growing residential demand, the city’s land market has considerable long-term potential. However, developers are likely to remain focused on locations with strong economic drivers and clear end-user demand. We expect JDAs and other partnership-led models to gain further traction, particularly for large land parcels, while outright acquisitions will increasingly be guided by location advantage, pricing discipline and development feasibility.
