Bangalore: Property developers are back with one-bedroom (1 BHK) and studio apartments to increase their sales volume which is all low due to slow off take in high-priced apartments, reports Raghavendra Kamath & Dilasha Seth of Business Standard.

One-bedroom and studio apartments are either launched or on the way of launching under some big banners like Hiranandani, Kalpataru, Man Infrastructure and Omkar in Thane and Mumbai suburbs. Also developers around Delhi-NCR have become active on one-bedroom and studio apartments concept.

Ashutosh Limaye, director, real estate intelligence service, Jones Lang LaSalle, stated that the reason behind developers introducing smaller apartments in suburbs is because of lesser off take in large high-priced apartments; however one-bedrooms are performing well within city limits so developers do not do it for commercial purpose.

According to SBI-Cap Securities recent report, the new trend of one-bedroom and studio apartments have come up despite low absorption rate in Delhi-NCR region and Mumbai the largest realty markets of India. In NCR, the absorption rate has come down to 10 million square feet from 15-20 million square feet from 2011 and Mumbai has witnessed 6 million square feet of absorption at a 25-month low.

Bharat Dhuppar, chief marketing officer at Omkar Realtors and Developers commented that, to increase sales at a faster rate, the size of the apartments have to be smaller as bigger apartments show slow movement in sales. And Omkar group is likely to launch one-and-a-half BHKs in Goregaon area of Mumbai.

Niranjan Hiranandani, managing director of Hiranandani Constructions have shown positive response towards the market for one-BHKs and so they are coming up with one-BHK apartments at Hiranandani Estate in Thane which is of 630 square feet in size that would cost around 50 lakh.

Tata Housing has started launching one-BHK apartments with area that varies from 283-489 square feet and price ranges from 3.9 to 7.8 lakh which depends on the size and location.

PropEquity, a realty research firm said that NCR region has seen 2959 one-BHK unit absorptions out of 6897 units launched from January to October 2011 and Mumbai saw the absorption of 4309 units out of 11,429 launched during the same period.

Pranay Vakil, chairman of property consultancy Knight Frank stated that many developers are coming up with smaller apartment projects due to the binding fact that developers should allocate certain percentage of each project for 500 square feet apartments under the new development rule. As buyers find one-BHK apartments reasonable that suits their budget.