India’s real estate market across its Tier 1 cities has climbed five positions to rank 26th globally in the JLL Global Real Estate Transparency Index (GRETI) 2026, making it one of the top five most-improved markets globally and the number one improver in Asia-Pacific.
The improvement from 31st position puts India in the middle of the “Transparent” tier, according to JLL.
The index measures 88 countries and 146 city markets on a scale of one to five, based on 260 factors assessing the availability, quality and reliability of real estate market data and information.
The United Kingdom topped the list as the most transparent market, followed by France, Australia, the United States and the Netherlands.
“India did not just improve this year; 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, chief executive officer, India, JLL.
India’s progress ranks as the fourth-best globally over 10 years and third-best over 20 years, Dhir said.
The improvement in transparency has coincided with strong investment activity in Indian real estate.
Private equity investment reached $10.5 billion in 2025, up 17 per cent year-on-year, and stood at $4.3 billion in the first half of 2026, up 25 per cent year-on-year, JLL said.
“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, JLL.
“Our office real estate investment trust (Reit) stock has grown 58 per cent from 104 million square feet (msf) in 2024 to 164 msf in 2026, and close to half of India’s grade A office stock is now Reit-worthy. We are watching a data centre pipeline that will need $110 billion in capital by 2029,” she added.
Pillai said the combination of improving transparency and market scale could help India’s capital markets move from being “most improved” to “genuinely institutional grade”.
India’s global ranking in the listed-market parameter improved from 36th to 35th, reflecting incremental gains in listed-market maturity, according to JLL.
Growing investor reliance on the BSE Realty Index and India Reit Index has made the benchmarks important tools for assessing listed-entity performance and understanding income-producing ownership structures.
Quarterly financial reporting and annual disclosure standards have also become established across Reits and publicly traded flexible-space operators, broadening transparency across the sector, JLL said.
The strongest improvement was recorded in the regulatory and legal parameter, where India climbed from 37th to 19th globally and from ninth to sixth in Asia-Pacific.
JLL attributed the improvement to the maturation of the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (Rera), foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalisation and the implementation of digitised land registries, including the National Urban Digital Mission (NUDM), NAKSHA and the Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme (DILRMP).
India maintained its position in the transaction-process parameter, ranking 10th globally and third in Asia-Pacific.
India’s global sustainability ranking improved to 27th from 29th, while its Asia-Pacific ranking remained unchanged at seventh.
JLL attributed the improvement to the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (Sebi’s) Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) framework.
The report also highlighted the launch of the National Green Building Mission in 2025.
Green-certified Grade A office stock penetration increased from roughly 39 per cent in 2020 to 66 per cent in the first half of 2026.
Certified buildings command a 10-15 per cent rental premium over non-certified buildings after adjusting for property type, location and age cohort, JLL said.
However, gaps remain in the movement from voluntary to mandatory Scope 3 norms, regulation and reporting of building-performance standards, public disclosure of property-level energy use, climate-risk reporting and resilience planning.
The report also pointed to the absence of nature and biodiversity risk-reporting standards and the need to extend the National Green Building Mission’s performance standards to existing stock.
JLL said the regulatory framework for the sector is also evolving across data protection, investment policy and energy policy.
This includes the phased implementation of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, investment-related measures in the Union Budget 2026-27 and targets for renewable and nuclear energy capacity.
The consultancy identified four pathways for India’s progression towards higher transparency: deepening performance disclosures across fund structures and asset classes beyond office; enhancing credit-market intelligence on origination volumes, maturity profiles and financing conditions; establishing verified, real-time building-performance metrics across the asset base; and using artificial intelligence to streamline due diligence and synthesise fragmented data.
