India's newest expressways are turning into some of the country's most closely watched real estate stories in 2026, as national data shows price growth increasingly concentrated in regions with fresh connectivity. Anarock's Pan-India Residential Market Viewpoints for January-March 2026 found the National Capital Region led price appreciation among major cities, posting a 15% year-on-year gain, well ahead of Bengaluru's 8% rise, driven largely by the concentrated supply of luxury and ultra-luxury projects along its expressway corridors. The average residential price across the region climbed to Rs 9,456 per square foot in the quarter, up from Rs 9,260 in the previous quarter and Rs 8,868 a year earlier.
No single stretch illustrates the trend better than Gurugram's Dwarka Expressway. Anarock data shows average prices along the corridor rose from around Rs 6,032 per square foot in 2021 to Rs 14,180 per square foot in the first half of 2026, a rise of 135% in five years, pushing the corridor's average above Gurugram's own citywide figure of Rs 13,350 per square foot for the same period. Rents have kept pace: a 2BHK of roughly 1,000 square feet along the expressway now fetches Rs 25,000 to Rs 31,250 a month, an 87% jump from 2021, according to Anarock.
Business Today reported that the corridor's most recent phase of growth has been the sharpest, with prices rising 110% to 120% between 2021 and early 2026 alone, more than double the pace of the preceding years, as improved Delhi-Gurugram connectivity and rising premium housing demand converged.
But the expressway effect does not play out the same way everywhere. A separate Anarock study comparing capital and rental value growth across India's top seven cities between 2021 and 2024 found that buyers, not tenants, captured the biggest gains in several NCR and Hyderabad corridors. On Sohna Road, capital values rose 59% against a 47% increase in rental values. In Mumbai's Chembur and Mulund, capital values grew 48% and 43% respectively, outpacing rental growth of 42% and 29%. Hyderabad's HITEC City and Gachibowli, both linked to newer road upgrades, showed a similar pattern of capital appreciation outrunning rents.
Pune, Kolkata and Chennai told a different story. In Pune's Hinjewadi, an IT corridor benefiting from the city's ring road network, rental values rose 57% against a smaller rise in capital values over the same three years, according to Anarock, suggesting tenant demand there is growing faster than what it costs to buy in.
Newer expressways further from Delhi are being watched for similar effects, though most of the numbers attached to them so far are projections rather than recorded transactions. Construction World reported that the Ganga Expressway is expected to lift property prices by 12% to 15% along its Uttar Pradesh corridor, prompting developers and local authorities to plan around new interchanges. Along the recently opened Delhi-Dehradun Expressway, real estate advisers told The Tribune that prices could rise a further 15% to 25% over the next 18 to 24 months, with districts such as Baghpat already recording gains of about 30% in 2024-25 as investors positioned themselves ahead of the road's full opening.
Industry executives caution that these forecasts, unlike Anarock's recorded price data, depend heavily on how quickly connecting infrastructure such as metro links and social amenities catches up with the road itself. Sanchit Jain, director at real estate advisory firm Sarvottam India, said investors entering early "with a medium- to long-term view" are betting on connectivity strengthening further as construction along the corridor continues.
For now, the clearest lesson from the data is a divided one. Expressways are reliably pushing up prices along the corridors closest to major cities, Dwarka, Sohna and Noida among them, but who benefits more, buyers or renters, still depends on which end of the corridor, and which city, the properties sit in. NCR and Hyderabad have so far rewarded ownership over renting, while Pune, Kolkata and Chennai are seeing tenants compete harder for space than buyers are for capital gains, a distinction that matters more than the expressway label itself when judging where the real winners are.
