India breaks into top 30 transparent real estate markets, ranks 26th globally

MUMBAI: India has broken into the top 30 markets globally in real estate transparency for the first time and emerged as the most improved market in the Asia Pacific region, reflecting the growing institutionalisation of the sector through stronger regulatory frameworks, improving disclosure standards and rising participation from global capital.

India climbed five positions from 31st to rank 26th globally in the 2026 JLL Global Real Estate Transparency Index (GRETI), placing it in the middle of the transparent tier. The country was also among the top five most-improved markets globally.

“India did not just improve this year; it set the pace for Asia Pacific. The improvement reflects a market that is compounding gains, not chasing a single good year. Our steady progress, fourth-best globally over 10 years and third-best over 20 years, positions India to enter the highly transparent tier as we advance toward aligning with the world's most transparent markets,” said Radha Dhir, CEO, India, JLL.


According to her, the next chapter is about scaling what is working in gateway markets to every market where global capital wants to invest.

The improvement in transparency has coincided with a rise in institutional investment. Private equity investment in Indian real estate reached $10.5 billion in 2025, up 17% year-on-year, and stood at $4.3 billion in the first half of 2026, up 25% on-year.

“The direct investment we saw this year, a 20-year high, is not the ceiling; it is the foundation we are building on…We expect the next few years to bring not just more capital, but more sophisticated capital into Indian real estate,” said Lata Pillai, Senior Managing Director & Head of Capital Markets, India, JLL.

The strongest gain came in the regulatory and legal parameter, where India moved from 37th to 19th globally and from 9th to 6th in Asia Pacific. This was attributed to the improvement to the maturation of RERA, FDI liberalisation and digitised land registries, including the National Urban Digital Mission (NUDM), NAKSHA and the Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP).

India also maintained a strong position in the transaction process parameter, ranking 10th globally and third in Asia Pacific, with greater availability of data on commercial real estate financing conditions and improvements in land-use planning and urban land records.

The listed real estate market saw incremental improvement, with India's global ranking moving to 35th from 36th. Office REIT stock increased 58% from 2024 to 164 million sq. ft by 2026, representing 18% of Grade A stock, while REIT-worthy assets reached 46% of current inventory.

India's sustainability ranking improved to 27th globally from 29th, while its Asia Pacific ranking remained at seventh. Green-certified Grade A office stock penetration rose from roughly 39% to 66% between 2020 and H1 2026.

The data centre sector is emerging as another area of growing transparency. By mid-2026, India had 1,637 MW of inventory, 2.8% vacancy, 100 MW absorption, 84.9 MW completions and 4,317 MW under construction, alongside a 15,000 MW planned pipeline.

India's data centre capacity is projected to grow from 1.6 GW to 6 GW by 2029, requiring $110 billion in investment. Global hyperscalers have committed over $50 billion towards AI-ready facilities and self-builds.

Further gains in transparency would depend on deeper performance disclosures across asset classes, stronger credit-market intelligence, verified building-performance metrics and greater use of artificial intelligence to synthesise fragmented market data.