Need For Maharashtra Model For Powering Senior Housing

The Maharashtra Housing Policy 2025 addresses the fundamental challenges that have constrained the growth of senior living. It has ushered in a new powerful ecosystem with a three-pronged approach aimed at making senior housing more affordable for buyers, more profitable for developers and more attractive for institutional investors- a win-win for the key stakeholders.

What makes the Maharashtra model stand out is its powerful financial and regulatory incentives. Besides ensuring compulsory registration of all senior living projects with RERA, the policy requires 20 percent of amenity space in integrated townships to be reserved for senior citizen housing and ensuring a steady supply pipeline in large, well-serviced developments.

For developers, Maharashtra Policy underlines significant financial and development incentives. These include 2.5 basic FSI in residential zones and FSI 1 in green zones, reduced GST of 1% together with concessions on development charges, 15% mixed-use allowance to create new revenue streams and single-window clearance to expedite project approvals. 

For buyers, the policy aims at improving affordability, making senior living accessible to a larger population of elders by way of nominal stamp duty of INR 1000 and discount on property tax. The policy is expected to result in estimated property cost savings of over 20%.

For investors, the policy has significantly derisked the investment environment and enhanced potential returns. Developers/investors can target 14-22% post-tax IRR which can be between 18-22% for the outright sale model. Operator margins could be anywhere between 10-20%. Moreover, there is a price premium of 15-20% over standard residential units.

The Association of Senior Living India (ASLI) in its joint study with JLL , has made a strong case for other states to come up with Maharashtra style financial and regulatory incentives to push supply and promote senior living. Especially keeping in view low market penetration and wide gap between demand and supply. By 2030, the projected market penetration will be just 1.6% (against 14-15% in New Zealand ) with a required supply of 14900 units between June 2025 and 2030 at an outlay of INR 26000 crore.

Ankur Gupta, Co-Founder ASLI & Joint MD, Ashiana Housing

Maharashtra Senior Living Policy promotes the idea of senior living , giving benefits of FSI, GST and stamp duty. The only challenge I see in this policy is that a lot of opportunistic developers may come in who don't want to do senior living for the sake of senior living but for the benefit of FSI. This is the scary part. Otherwise such a policy will encourage a lot of people to come into senior living which will help increase the supply. The only worry is about those who don't want to manage and maintain it. They will come for a short period as we have seen it happening in Haryana. 

A good thing about Maharashtra Act is that operators also need to be registered . This will help the entry of the right people. While controlling operators, the policy gives benefits to developers. One only hopes that the qualitative and not opportunistic aspect of the policy comes to the forefront.

Anuj Puri, Chairman, Anarock Group

There are quite a few policy gaps to address. For instance, there is still no dedicated land-use zoning for senior housing projects. Developers do not really have any major tax incentives to make such projects more interesting to them. It may be time for the government to start designating dedicated senior housing zones and extend tax and other related incentives to developers who larger emulation Reserving 10% of new housing for seniors, giving developers FAR and density incentives, waiving stamp duty and extending interest subsidy would help create more enthusiasm for senior living developments. Combining these with required accessibility criteria and operator accreditation, would make projects less risky, bring in private investment and help fill the demand-supply gap for senior living.

Dr. Samantak Das, Chief Economist & Executive Director, Research & REIS, JLL India

From the real estate perspective, the major challenge to put the senior living on a high growth trajectory, is the lack of congruence between incentives for developers and affordability of buyers. In this backdrop, the Maharashtra Housing Policy 2025, is a landmark step, unlocking benefits for both developers and buyers. Developers gain from enhanced project viability through higher FSI, reduced development charges and fast track approvals. At the same time buyers enjoy unprecedented affordability with significantly reduced stamp duty and GST, together with concessions on property tax that ease long-term ownership costs. 

By combining profitability with accessibility, the policy not only boosts private participation but also ensures seniors can access safe, affordable, and dignified communities. It is prudent for other states to draw lessons from this policy and chalk out a similar framework to incentivize all the stakeholders, keeping in mind the local dynamics.

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