The report says that the pan-India demand for real estate across office, retail, residential and hospitality sectors is expected to cross 1,000 million sq ft by 2012. A major portion of the demand, at around 876 million sq ft, however, will come from the seven major cities as shown in the chart. A dynamic workforce, liberalized economy, robust demand for real estate across sectors are key factors that will make the Indian market in the coming times more reliable for investment especially in the real estate sector, the report says. The residential segment will continue to drive real estate demand with 687 million sq ft, contributing 63% throughout the term under consideration. Despite the expected slowdown in the office market, the report says the demand for commercial office space is projected to be 243 million sq ft, which is around 22% of the total demand projections for the next five years. The retail and hospitality segments are expected to constitute 95 million sq ft, which will be 9% of the total demand and 73 million sq ft, or 6% of the projected demand, respectively.

In the seven cities, the total demand for office space is likely to be 202 million sq ft. During the boom period of 2007, the demand for office space in all these seven cities was around 50 million sq ft. Therefore, the expected demand of 202 million sq ft, despite global slowdown, will augur well for the sector.

Similarly, in the case of residential real estate, the projected demand of 528 million sq ft in the seven top cities can considered to be very high. The 528 million sq ft residential space could be visualized as 5.28 lakh apartments, each 1,000 sq ft, which by any standards is a huge addition to the demand. Such a strong demand, in the next four years, will make the sector attractive for investment. Anurag Mathur and Sanjay Dutt, joint managing directors, India of Cushman & Wakefield say: "The world-wide economic slowdown is definitely impacting the real estate sector - both across the world and India as well. Fortunately, this slowdown is unlikely to last beyond the next 2- 3 years. In the long-term, strong demand for real estate in India will remain intact and will probably see us through another real estate cycle once the market finds its own level by responding to these short- to mid-term global and domestic factors."

According to the C&W report, the NCR has emerged as a clear preference for sectors like retail, residential and hospitality, while it comes a close second in the office sector. The growing importance of the city can be gauged by the quantum of demand that it is likely to see. While the commercial office sector will see a demand of 48 million sq ft, residential demand would be around 114 million sq ft by 2012.