If you are in the market to buy buy an apartment in Dhaka then good luck finding one for less than 70,00,000 taka.
That is the median price of an apartment in the first quarter of 2022 based on my analysis of nearly 9000 apartments for sale on bproperty.com, the most popular Bangladeshi website for real estate listing.
The analysis revealed some interesting aspects regarding the current real estate market of Dhaka.
What is the median price per square foot?
In terms of price per square foot (ppsf), the median hovers around 5500 taka. But if we take a more granular look at the data then things take some dramatic turns. For Gulshan area the median ppsf soars all the way to 15445 taka, highest in the city. On the other hand Mohamamdpur have the lowest ppsf at 4875 taka.
What is the average apartment size?
Median size of an apartment in Dhaka is 1270 square feet (sqft). But that number more than doubles in Gulshan area (2667 sqft) which has the largest median apartment size in the city.
On the other hand, at 1235 sqft, Mohamamdpur area has the smallest apartments. Interestingly when it comes to unit price (price per square-feet) Gulshan and Mohammadpur also fall at the opposite ends of the spectrum, with Gulshan being the most highly priced.
It is a rather puzzling revelation because in most other megacities, small apartments can be found even in the priciest neighborhood, as evidenced in this article, making those neighborhood somewhat affordable for people who wants to sacrifice space for location.
Where are the small apartments?
Outside of Gulshan and Banani, the apartments get dramatically small. As mentioned above, Mohamamdpur has the smallest apartments. In Mirpur, Badda, Adabor and Banasree the size gets slightly bigger.
Where are the cheapest apartments?
As we have observed in the analysis that both the actual apartment price and the price per unit is highly and positively correlated with apartment size in Dhaka so it is no wonder that you’ll find the cheapest apartment in the area where the smallest apartments are. And those areas are Mohammadur, Adabpr, Mirpur, Badda and Banasree. Apartment price in these areas hover between 60-80 lakh.
What about the priciest apartments?
Almost all the priciest apartments of this list in concentrated in Gulshan and Dhanmondi area. With few others in Banani, Bashundhara R-A and Baridhara.
How does Dhaka fare against Indian cities?
Since Bangladesh an India has comparable income per capita, it is reasonable to compare the apartment prices of Dhaka to some of the megacities of India.
Initially I attempted to compare the average apartment size and price per square-feet between Dhaka and 5 most populous Indian cities but there are not any reliable and up-to-date data regarding the average apartment size of the Indian cities.
Conclusion
A better in depth analysis could be performed if real estate data from previous years were available. It is impossible to extract key trends and patterns without quarterly or yearly data. For instance, pre-COVID real estate data would help shed light on the effect of COVID on real estate price in Dhaka. And with farther analysis of building material costs, the driver behind the cost increase or reduction could also be identified.