Walk-to-work Trend Gathers Pace in Mumbai’s Goregaon

By Prashant Thakur, Head – Research, ANAROCK Property Consultants

Goregaon, located on the western lines of the Mumbai suburbs, is one of the oldest and most popular residential areas in MMR. A vibrant residential hub, Goregaon lies between Bandra and Borivali and has earns its tag as a premium residential hotspot due to its proximity to the entertainment industry in Bandra and Juhu.

In a city where connectivity is everything, other market drivers that make it such an attractive residential hub for HNI buyers and investors are its proximity to:

• The Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport
• The commercial hubs of Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) and Andheri
• The Western Express Highway
• NESCO, Nirlon Knowledge Park and Mindspace
• The proposed ODC (Oshiwara District Center)

Apart from its thriving commercial office real estate market, the fact that Goregaon is such a uniquely-positioned hub for working professionals also favours its residential property market. Moreover, Goregaon has emerged as one of the front-running property hotspots to advance the vital walk-to-work (w2w) concept in Mumbai.

With several office projects already in place and more constantly mushrooming in and around the locality, senior corporate professionals can now benefit from the w2w advantage here. In fact, MMRDA intends to transform the ODC into another BKC, furthering Goregaon’s attractiveness as a walk-to-work micro market.

Accessibility:

• Road: Goregaon has easy access to Western Express Highway via Aarey road, a 4-km drive. It also provides quick access to Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport via Western Express Highway.
• Rail: Goregaon has a large local railway station with massive daily commuter footfalls.
• Suburban Rail: Mumbai suburban railway’s Western line has a station at Goregaon providing fast connectivity to Andheri, Bandra, Dadar and Churchgate, and connects to CST via the Harbour line.
• Proposed Metro Line: MMRDA has proposed a Metro line 2 from Dahisar-DN Nagar – a 8.5 km line covering Goregaon, Adarsh Nagar and Shastri Nagar.
• Air: Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, located just 10 km away via the Western Express Highway, makes Goregaon one of Mumbai’s primary gateways to the world.

Residential snapshot

• Goregaon saw the launch of nearly 8,000 housing units over the past five years. Of this, 70% was added during the period 2013-14. The area also saw spillover demand from nearby expensive destinations such as Bandra-Andheri and Powai.
• Of the overall supply, more than 55% has already been absorbed.

• While the area has a high demand for affordable housing (homes priced between INR 40 – 80 lakh), nearly 90% of the new launches in the past three years fall in the price bracket of either INR 80 lakh – INR 1.5 Cr or above INR 1.5 Cr.
• Despite overall low sentiments in real estate in 2016, Goregaon saw a decent new units supply owing to its excellent connectivity to key workplaces, including BKC.
• Currently, nearly 28% (around 3,000) units are ready for possession in Goregaon. This indicates that the micro market has a good execution track record – an encouraging sign for prospective homebuyers looking to move in quickly and avoid execution delays.

• However, several mid-size projects have been launched in the area over the past few years, resulting in a large portion of the supply comprising nearly 32%(around 2,500 units) is expected to take more than 3 years to complete.
• The average housing price in Goregaon as of Q4 2017 stood at around INR 16,600/sq.ft. – the highest in the past two years – with an annual growth of around 3-4% from Q4 2016 to Q4 2017. Decent demand by prospective buyers gives builders sufficient incentive to infuse new right-priced supply into this micro market.

With Goregaon having emerged as one of Mumbai’s most convincing walk-to-work suburbs, it is attracting considerable housing demand. This locality’s seemingly gravity-defying rise in residential property prices is the result of its strong overall economic growth in terms of employment, commercialization and infrastructure development over the past several years.

If we add the upcoming Metro line 2 from Dahisar to D.N Nagar to its existing physical infrastructure and factor in the presence of greenery in the vicinity, sustained residential real estate traction in the future is certain. Moreover, with the dust of the newly-implemented policies including RERA and GST finally settling, real estate activity in this micro market will gain steady momentum going forward.