Square Yards has released a first-of-its-kind COVID Suitability Index report. The latest research report by the company titled “Suitability Index: The COVID Perspective”, aims to study the suitability and liveability in three prime cities of India namely Bengaluru, Mumbai and Gurugram with respect to COVID.
Not only are these cities the top real estate destinations in the country but also were one of the top cities to be severely hit by COVID. This is where the relevance of a Suitability Index kicks in. Here is how the study helps you:
The need for one’s own ‘home’ has gained an all-new dimension since 2020 due to the changes brought in by the pandemic. And these changes are here to stay. This study is an attempt at making the home-buying process in the COVID era slightly more pragmatic.
It highlights certain meaningful factors that today’s end users need to acknowledge while deciding to buy the right home in a pandemic like situation.
These include factors such as population density, open area ratio and availability of hospital infrastructure which could be far more important today than the distance from work or affordability.
The report uses these factors and the COVID status in three top cities: Mumbai, Bengaluru and Gurugram, to ascertain the suitability of these cities on the basis of liveability which in turn would help an end-user make an informed decision on where to live.
Here are the key takeaways from the report:
- As per the report, Gurugram was the most suitable city to live from a COVID perspective amongst the three cities studied.
- The East zone in Gurugram, the Western and Central suburbs in Mumbai and Mahadevapura zone in Bengaluru were found to be the most suitable to live from a COVID perspective.
- While both Mumbai and Bengaluru had only 1.3 and 0.30 COVID hospitals available respectively per 10, 000 people, Gurugram outshone both with 2.5 hospitals per 10, 000 people.
- Contrary to the common notion, the report suggests that Mumbai has the highest Open Area ratio amongst the three cities at 45%.
- Mumbai was the most densely populated at 60, 000 people/Sq.Km. while Gurugram had the lowest population density at 4,200 people/Sq.Km.
- The COVID-suitability heat map for each city suggests that across all cities, suitability increased as we moved away from the city centres and older parts of the city towards more peripheral locations.