City-based Vakil Housing Development Corporation has become the latest entrant into the market to develop affordable homes as the real-estate industry tries to cope with a downtrend in demand.

A senior official of the company said that the move is part of its strategy to increase its residential real estate development footprint across the southern metros. To begin with, it plans to launch two low-cost housing projects on the outskirts of Bangalore – close to the airport in the north and off Hosur Road in the south-where it already has banked land, co-director Mohammad Ali Vakil said.

A prominent layout developer, Mr Vakil has so far developed 8.8 million square feet of land in and around Bangalore. “Having weighed various options, we decided to foray into mass housing projects as the space is quite untapped. Almost every developer has projects in the Rs 40-60 lakh bracket, apart from premium housing, and it therefore doesn’t make sense for us to do the same.

The demand for homes priced below Rs 40 lakh is huge and presents a large opportunity for us,” Mr Vakil said. The housing ministry estimates shortage of homes to go up to 26.53 million by 2012, most of it among economically-weaker sections and low-income groups.

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