India’s real estate sector has recorded its strongest transparency gain in years, climbing five places to rank 26th in the world on the JLL Global Real Estate Transparency Index (GRETI) 2026, entering the index’s “Transparent” tier for the first time and topping the improvement charts across the entire Asia-Pacific region, according to findings released this week.
The country was named among the top five most-improved real estate markets globally, jumping from 31st position in the previous edition of the index. A key driver behind the leap was a sharp improvement in India’s regulatory environment, with its regulatory sub-ranking surging from 37th to 19th — a shift analysts attribute to the maturing of the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) framework, liberalised foreign direct investment (FDI) norms, and the rollout of digital land-record systems including the National Urban Digital Mission.
“India did not just improve this year in JLL’s Global Real Estate Transparency Index 2026; it set the pace for Asia Pacific. Moving from 31st to 26th globally and ranking among the top five most-improved markets worldwide reflects a market that is compounding gains, not chasing a single good year,” said Radha Dhir, CEO of JLL India.
CAPITAL IS FOLLOWING THE CONFIDENCE
The transparency gains have coincided with a marked rise in investor appetite. Private equity investment into Indian real estate touched $10.5 billion in 2025, a 17 per cent year-on-year increase, while direct investment into the sector hit a 20-year high of $8.1 billion over the trailing twelve months.
“The direct investment we saw this year, a 20-year high, is not the ceiling; it is the foundation we are building on. Private equity flows are already up 17 per cent year-on-year, reaching $10.5 billion in 2025,” said Lata Pillai, Senior Managing Director and Head of Capital Markets, India, at JLL.
The office segment has been a particular beneficiary of this renewed confidence. REIT-worthy office stock — Grade A office space suitable for real estate investment trusts — has expanded 58 per cent to 164 million square feet in 2026, up from 104 million square feet in 2024, with nearly half of all Grade A office space in the country now meeting REIT-grade standards.
Looking further ahead, the report projects India’s data centre capacity will nearly quadruple from 1.6 gigawatts to 6 gigawatts by 2029, a build-out expected to require roughly $110 billion in capital investment and to push the market further toward the index’s “Highly Transparent” category in future editions.
A REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT STILL IN MOTION
The transparency gains arrive alongside continued fine-tuning of India’s real estate regulatory architecture. Earlier this year, the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2026 — a central government initiative aimed at easing compliance burdens across multiple economic laws — amended Section 68 of the RERA Act to remove the threat of imprisonment for homebuyers who fail to comply with orders of the Real Estate Appellate Tribunal, leaving only monetary penalties in place. Imprisonment provisions for developers and real estate agents under other sections of the Act remain unchanged, meaning builder accountability under RERA continues as before while buyers gain relief from what was widely seen as a disproportionate penal risk.
Taken together, industry watchers say the twin developments — a stronger global transparency ranking and a regulatory system recalibrating in favour of consumers without diluting developer accountability — point to a real estate market maturing on both the investment and consumer-protection fronts simultaneously.
OUTLOOK
With India now inside the “Transparent” tier for the first time and posting the fastest improvement of any Asia-Pacific market, real estate watchers will be tracking whether the momentum in regulatory reform, digital land governance and capital inflows can be sustained through the rest of 2026 — a run that JLL’s own leadership describes not as a peak, but as a foundation for further gains.
India’s real estate sector has recorded its strongest transparency gain in years, climbing five places to rank 26th in the world on the JLL Global Real Estate Transparency Index (GRETI) 2026, entering the index’s “Transparent” tier for the first time and topping the improvement charts across the entire Asia-Pacific region, according to findings released this week.
The country was named among the top five most-improved real estate markets globally, jumping from 31st position in the previous edition of the index. A key driver behind the leap was a sharp improvement in India’s regulatory environment, with its regulatory sub-ranking surging from 37th to 19th — a shift analysts attribute to the maturing of the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) framework, liberalised foreign direct investment (FDI) norms, and the rollout of digital land-record systems including the National Urban Digital Mission.
“India did not just improve this year in JLL’s Global Real Estate Transparency Index 2026; it set the pace for Asia Pacific. Moving from 31st to 26th globally and ranking among the top five most-improved markets worldwide reflects a market that is compounding gains, not chasing a single good year,” said Radha Dhir, CEO of JLL India.
CAPITAL IS FOLLOWING THE CONFIDENCE
The transparency gains have coincided with a marked rise in investor appetite. Private equity investment into Indian real estate touched $10.5 billion in 2025, a 17 per cent year-on-year increase, while direct investment into the sector hit a 20-year high of $8.1 billion over the trailing twelve months.
“The direct investment we saw this year, a 20-year high, is not the ceiling; it is the foundation we are building on. Private equity flows are already up 17 per cent year-on-year, reaching $10.5 billion in 2025,” said Lata Pillai, Senior Managing Director and Head of Capital Markets, India, at JLL.
The office segment has been a particular beneficiary of this renewed confidence. REIT-worthy office stock — Grade A office space suitable for real estate investment trusts — has expanded 58 per cent to 164 million square feet in 2026, up from 104 million square feet in 2024, with nearly half of all Grade A office space in the country now meeting REIT-grade standards.
Looking further ahead, the report projects India’s data centre capacity will nearly quadruple from 1.6 gigawatts to 6 gigawatts by 2029, a build-out expected to require roughly $110 billion in capital investment and to push the market further toward the index’s “Highly Transparent” category in future editions.
A REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT STILL IN MOTION
The transparency gains arrive alongside continued fine-tuning of India’s real estate regulatory architecture. Earlier this year, the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2026 — a central government initiative aimed at easing compliance burdens across multiple economic laws — amended Section 68 of the RERA Act to remove the threat of imprisonment for homebuyers who fail to comply with orders of the Real Estate Appellate Tribunal, leaving only monetary penalties in place. Imprisonment provisions for developers and real estate agents under other sections of the Act remain unchanged, meaning builder accountability under RERA continues as before while buyers gain relief from what was widely seen as a disproportionate penal risk.
Taken together, industry watchers say the twin developments — a stronger global transparency ranking and a regulatory system recalibrating in favour of consumers without diluting developer accountability — point to a real estate market maturing on both the investment and consumer-protection fronts simultaneously.
OUTLOOK
With India now inside the “Transparent” tier for the first time and posting the fastest improvement of any Asia-Pacific market, real estate watchers will be tracking whether the momentum in regulatory reform, digital land governance and capital inflows can be sustained through the rest of 2026 — a run that JLL’s own leadership describes not as a peak, but as a foundation for further gains.
