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Around 45 per cent of her monthly income goes towards rent, another 16 per cent towards commuting and about 9 per cent towards electricity. Together, these expenses account for nearly 71 per cent of her income, leaving limited room for savings and discretionary spending.
The pressure has also entered her professional decisions. Suparna says she considers the House Rent Allowance offered by an organisation before accepting a job and has previously changed jobs after annual rent increases made her budget difficult to manage. “I have changed jobs because my landlord increased the rent every year, making it difficult to manage my budget,” she says.
Her experience is interestingly a marker for a wider challenge facing India’s rapidly expanding Global Capability Centre (GCC) ecosystem. As employment clusters grow and attract professionals from across the country, demand for homes and rentals around workplaces rises with them. But where land and development costs increase, supplying homes at prices accessible to middle-income workers becomes harder.
India’s GCC ecosystem has crossed 2,117 centres, employing around 2.36 million professionals. GCCs account for nearly 40 per cent of India’s office demand, according to industry responses, giving their expansion an increasingly important role in shaping not only commercial districts but also the residential markets developing around them.
Jobs Grow, Housing Economics Change
Nandakumar O.P., COO – Commercial, Brigade Group, sees a clear correlation between the rapid expansion of GCCs and changing housing dynamics in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. “The influx of high-skilled professionals has driven demand for both ownership and rental housing, contributing to rising land and home prices,” he says.
The challenge begins with what happens to land around expanding employment corridors. As demand for offices, homes and supporting infrastructure increases, land values can rise, adding to project costs. Developers then have to make projects viable on more expensive land, making lower-ticket housing increasingly difficult to deliver.
This pressure comes as the residential market has already moved towards higher ticket sizes. According to Manoj Dhanotiya, Founder and CEO, Micro Mitti, 78 per cent of homes sold nationally now cost above Rs 1 crore. He says residential prices rose 13-15 per cent in Bengaluru and 8-13 per cent in Hyderabad last year. “Housing always chases jobs,” Dhanotiya says.
The problem, however, is not simply that premium homes are being built. India’s GCC workforce includes senior professionals alongside a large pool of young and mid-level salaried employees whose housing budgets do not necessarily rise at the same pace as land and property prices.
Karteesh Reddy Madgula, CEO, GHR Infra, says GCC growth creates salaried demand, improves absorption and supports rental yields and investor confidence. But that growth can create an imbalance if residential supply becomes concentrated at the upper end. “The risk begins when supply chases only premium demand and leaves mid-income housing behind,” he says.
For developers, this creates a difficult equation. Demand for moderately priced housing can remain strong, but rising land costs, approval expenses and other development costs can make such projects increasingly challenging to execute near employment centres.
When A Housing Challenge Becomes A Talent Challenge
For employees, the impact appears in rent, commute, savings and the choice of where to live. Anushka, who moved from Delhi to Hyderabad for work, says finding suitable accommodation took considerable time. Rent, maintenance, the initial security deposit and commuting expenses have reduced her ability to save, while staying within budget meant compromising on the type of accommodation she wanted. “Housing affordability plays a major role in career decisions. It is something I would definitely consider before relocating again in the future,” she says.
For Khushi, who moved from Odisha to Bengaluru, the trade-off was different. Budget and proximity to her workplace were key considerations, along with finding a fully furnished apartment. She eventually gave up the convenience of living within walking distance of her office to find accommodation that worked for her. Homeownership is not an immediate option either. “The biggest hurdle is definitely money, and I would say flexibility too. Buying a home would tie you down to a place and I’m not sure if I’m ready for that,” she says.
These experiences turn the housing debate into more than a real estate question. If employees increasingly have to choose between high housing costs and longer commutes, housing can begin to influence labour mobility and the ability of employment centres to retain workers.
“Talent sustainability depends on liveability, not salaries alone. A city cannot retain its workforce if employees spend too much time or income on housing,” Madgula says.
Can Rental Housing Bridge The Gap?
For a mobile workforce, the immediate solution may not always be homeownership. A significant section of professionals relocating for jobs rents before deciding whether to settle permanently in a city, making rental supply an important part of the GCC-housing equation.
Dhanotiya says rental increases have moderated from 12-24 per cent during 2021-24 to around 7-9 per cent now. But he argues that slower rental inflation does not resolve the underlying issue. “The real problem isn’t the rate, it’s the shortage of decent mid-income rentals near workplaces,” he says.
Industry executives see organised rental housing as one possible response. Nandakumar expects demand for professionally managed rental communities to increase as the GCC workforce, already at 2.36 million, continues to expand. He points to institutional rental housing, co-living and long-term rental frameworks as formats that could broaden supply for workers who are unwilling or unable to buy.
Madgula similarly expects managed rentals, co-living and build-to-rent formats to gain relevance over the next five years. But adding rental stock alone may not be sufficient if workers still have to live far from employment centres. “The key need is predictable supply near workplaces, stronger tenant-owner frameworks, better last-mile transport and rental housing planned as part of employment districts, not treated as an afterthought,” he says.
That approach shifts the solution from building more homes alone to planning jobs, housing and transport together.
Making Mid-Income Housing Viable Again
Developers argue that correcting the ownership market requires addressing the economics that make lower-ticket projects difficult to deliver. Nandakumar attributes the declining presence of affordable housing in Tier-I cities to rising land costs, regulatory cost burdens and insufficient incentives. His proposed response includes releasing public land specifically for lower-cost housing, faster single-window clearances and stronger floor space index incentives.
The objective, according to the industry view, is to reduce the cost pressure on projects rather than expecting developers to absorb increasingly expensive land while keeping selling prices low.
Dhanotiya proposes another approach: connect the incentives governments offer to GCC investments with housing obligations. “Tie GCC land subsidies to an affordable-housing quota. Give the incentive, but attach a condition,” he says.
Such proposals would require government, developers and businesses to treat housing supply as part of economic planning rather than allowing residential development to follow employment growth after land prices have already risen.
For Madgula, the focus should also remain on mid-income supply, transit and employee catchments. GCCs need not become housing providers, he says, but can participate in city-level discussions about the infrastructure required by their workforce.
Tier-II Cities Have A Window To Act
The strongest opportunity to test these solutions may lie outside established metros. More than 375 GCC units are already operating across emerging cities, according to Nandakumar. Kochi, Coimbatore and Mysuru are among the markets seeing expansion, while Dhanotiya points to corporate activity in Indore, Nagpur, Vadodara and Jaipur.
These cities still have an advantage: land and office costs remain relatively lower. Dhanotiya says Tier-II office lease rates are 30-50 per cent cheaper than Bengaluru. But early signs of appreciation are already visible. Indore’s guideline rates rose around 26 per cent in 2025, while values along its Super Corridor have increased by more than 35 per cent over five years, he says. If employment expands faster than housing supply, however, the cost advantage could narrow.
Madgula warns that early land speculation, premium-led launches and inadequate public transport can push local and middle-income workers farther from new employment hubs. His prescription is to map employment growth with housing supply, reserve land for mid-income projects, improve approval timelines and build transport before prices harden. “The mistake would be waiting until affordability becomes a crisis,” he says.
That makes Tier-II expansion both a warning and an opportunity. Bengaluru and Hyderabad show what can happen when strong employment growth collides with rising land values and a housing market moving towards higher ticket sizes. Emerging GCC cities still have the chance to integrate workplaces, rental housing, mid-income homes and transport before those pressures become entrenched.
For Suparna, the consequences of that imbalance are already visible: above 70 per cent of her income goes towards rent, electricity and commuting, while buying a home remains distant. The next phase of India’s GCC growth will therefore depend not only on how many jobs cities attract, but also on whether housing and infrastructure planning can ensure the people taking those jobs can afford to live within reach of them.
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