Real estate developers have acquired nearly 2,200-acre land parcels since January last year for around Rs 26,000 crore, mainly to develop residential projects, according to JLL India.In a statement, real estate consultant JLL India said that the developers have acquired around 2,181, acres of land area in the last 17 months (January 2022-May 2023) valued at over Rs 26,000 crore, with an estimated development potential of around 209 million square feet in 104 separate land deals.Out of 2,181 acres, JLL said around 578 acres (27 per cent) of the land was acquired in the first five months of 2023 alone.

Branded developers have successfully closed many land transactions in top metros as well as tier 2-3 cities, driven by the resilience shown by the real estate sector.Delhi-NCR, Chennai, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and Bengaluru lead in terms of total land area transacted accounting for 72 per cent share (around 1,576 acres), having a development potential of around 150 million sq ft in 79 separate land deals.Pune, Kolkata and Hyderabad together account for a 9 per cent share.The rest was contributed by cities like Surat, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Nagpur, Panchkula and Kurukshetra.

Real estate developers who actively acquired land included Godrej Properties, M3M, Max Estates, Birla Estates and Mahindra Lifespaces, among others.NCR includes NCT of Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Bahadurgarh, Sonipat, and Panipat. MMR includes Mumbai, Thane, Panvel, Palghar, and Khalapur.Other cities include Surat, Sanand, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Nagpur, Panchkula, and Kurukshetra.

“Interestingly, out of the total 2,181 acres, 84 per cent of the total land area transacted (around 1,822 acres) are for proposed residential developments.”These residential land transactions have an estimated development potential of around 165 million sq ft. The sales potential from these residential deals is estimated to be around Rs 1,22,000 crore,” the consultant said.