E-Paper
Lodha Developers eyes Gurugram as launchpad for NCR projects
Gurugram real estate: Lodha’s NCR strategy: Abhishek Lodha said the company’s initial focus will likely be Gurugram, though it is open to other parts of NCR
Mumbai-based Lodha Developers is expected to launch its first real estate project in Gurugram, marking the company’s entry into the Delhi NCR market, Managing Director and CEO Abhishek Lodha has said. He also said that the company is exploring other areas of the NCR.
Responding to a question on whether the company’s NCR strategy includes Gurugram, Noida, or both, Lodha said during the October 31 investor call that "At this stage, our initial focus is most likely to be in Gurugram, but it does not mean that we do not look at any other part of the NCR, but it's quite likely that we will perhaps start off on the Gurugram side of the NCR."
Gurugram real estate market more than 50% of the NCR market
Abhishek Lodha also stated that the Gurugram real estate market is currently more than 50% of the NCR market.
"Gurugram is probably right now, more than 50% of the NCR market, and we are telling you that at the end of the decade, Palava and Upper Thane (near Mumbai) will be 3.5% of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) market. So, you can see the scale of the opportunity versus where we currently are projecting things to be," Lodha said about the opportunities within the company’s MMR projects.
Also Read: India’s real estate market yet to enter ‘takeoff phase’, says Abhishek Lodha
NCR pilot project launch likely in 2026
According to Lodha, the company anticipates achieving a 20% annual growth rate.
"And as we now further move over in 2026 to starting our pilot in NCR, we hope that by covering these 4 major metros, Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore already and the pilot in NCR, we will see a long runway of growth which enables our company to continue to deliver on its medium-term strategy of having the approximately 20% annual growth and 20% ROE," Lodha said.
In July 2025, Abhishek Lodha stated that the company anticipates concluding one or more land deals in the Delhi-NCR region this fiscal year, paving the way for its first project launch in the area in the following financial year.
"We expect to enter Delhi NCR in the next 12 months and hope to launch in fiscal 2027. The Delhi NCR is an important market for us to get into. We obviously, as we have done in Pune and Bengaluru, will only enter in a gradual manner. We will be starting off with a pilot phase with a moderate number of projects and a moderate level of investment with a view to understanding better how the market operates and how we build out the supply chain for operations as well as sales," Lodha had said during an investors’ call in July 2025.
India’s real estate market is yet to enter the ‘takeoff phase
At the investors' call in October, Lodha had also said that India's real estate market is "still on the runway, it hasn’t reached the takeoff phase yet” and is only beginning to gain momentum.
“We (India's real estate market) are still sort of, I would say, the plane is on the runway. It is not even gotten to kind of takeoff phase. It is just kind of moving along on the runway. That is how we think the cycle is,” Lodha said during the company’s Q2 FY26 earnings call recently.
"Yes, sometimes there will be a situation, there will be a backup on the runway. The plane will have to pause for a few minutes, or it might be a few quarters in this context. But we have many years ahead in the cycle," Lodha said.
He noted that the Indian housing sector is undergoing a “once-in-a-lifetime transition” from low-income to mid-income housing.
"Wherever such transitions have happened in large economies, they have witnessed very long real estate cycles, typically 15 to 20 years. We think India will also have a cycle that long. We are only four or five years out of that very long cycle. It does not mean we never had a bad year; we can, of course, have a bad year," Lodha had said during the call.
