BENGALURU: The trend of decreasing property sizes seems to have hit Bengaluru as well. While the city is still better off than other metros in terms of shrinking of home space, the last two years have seen property sizes begin to reduce with the average size no at 1260 sq ft, still much larger than the size of new houses in Mumbai. 

According to property consultants ANAROCK, Bengaluru has witnessed a 12% reduction in space in the past 5 years. However, most of the 12% decrease has been observed in the past 2 years as before 2017, the average size of a home in Bengaluru fluctuated by 1-2% every year. This is likely to signal a move by property buyers towards smaller homes, located closer to the city. ​

City Express spoke to a few home-buyers to understand their preference. “It is definitely desirable to have a house on the outskirts which can be huge, but maintaning a large home is also a burden. Added to that is travel time to and from work which makes such homes a problem to own,” said Kiran Kumar, who works near Richmond Road. 

“When it comes to housing, size matters for all kinds of reasons. The added floor space of larger homes definitely spells comfort, convenience and family scalability, every additional square foot either comes at a higher price or pushes available options further away from the central regions of a city,” said Anuj Puri, Chairman, ANAROCK. 

According to the report, in 2014, homes in Bengaluru were sized around 1,430 square feet, compared to Mumbai Metropolitan Region, which already had 960 square feet as the average. In 2018, Bengaluru remained at 1,260 sq. feet while Mumbai dropped to 700 square feet. Pune is only slightly better at an average size of 750 sq feet per home. 

“A major factor contributing to the shrinking apartment sizes across most metros is the rising demand for budget-friendly housing. With property prices going overboard in most metros, developers have been reducing sizes to align their offerings more with the actual homebuyer demand,” Puri said. The reduction in flat size has invariably been achieved by the elimination of extra balconies - and in many cases all balconies - and better apartment designs that allow more efficient use of smaller spaces according to ANAROCK.