Pune has a good number of national highways and state highways that provide excellent connectivity. NH-4 connects Pune to Bangalore, Mumbai and Kolhapur, while NH-9 connects the city to Hyderabad and NH-50 to Nashik. The State Highway connects the city to Aurangabad, Ahmednagar and Alandi. India's first six-lane high-speed expressway, the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, has significantly improved the connectivity of the city. Built in 2002, the Expressway has significantly reduced the travel time between Mumbai and Pune.

The Pune International Airport is situated at Lohegaon. It offers domestic flights to major Indian cities and international flights to Frankfurt and Dubai. Local trains in Pune connect it to Lonavala and Pimpri-Chinchwad. There are daily express trains that link the city to Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi, Kanpur, Mumbai, Jammu, Patna, Bengaluru, Delhi, Coimbatore, Howrah and other cities.

For improved connectivity within the city, Pune Metro Rail is in talks with the DMRCL. The proposed metro will have both underground and elevated sections. The initial routes are outlined between Vanaz-Ramwadi and Pimpri-Swargate.

PMPML buses offer very good transport service within the city and its suburbs. In addition to it, the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) also provides buses from the main stations in Pune to all the prime locations in Maharashtra. Pune has currently started the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) between Katraj, Swargate and Hadapsar. There are other routes being proposed and under construction.

In order to bring more transparency and structure to the real estate sector in the city, the government of Maharashtra, the local civic bodies and the judiciary laid down certain policies this year.

• Data indicates that the new launched supply in Pune in 2014 was largely dominated by small and mid-sized projects (less than 500 units each), which comprised almost 90 per cent of the total project supply. Therefore, one can say that the city is expected to witness ample supply of ready-to-move-in property in 2016, followed by 2015.

• Year 2016 is likely to see ample ready-to-move-in supply all across the city. Zone-wise, maximum unit supply will be in the Eastern Region (about 48 per cent), followed by the North and South belts with 20 per cent each.

• As for 2015, maximum unit supply will be in the Western region (about 36 per cent), followed by East and North belts with 21 per cent each.

Property prices in prominent micro markets in Pune saw decent increase over the year 2014 with only a few localities being, more or less, stable. Despite the general slowdown witnessed across other major cities, Pune realty market stood resilient mainly due to high demand from the IT/ITeS sectors. Add to this, property prices are relatively ‘affordable’ in Pune in contrast to other markets such as MMR and NCR.

• Out of the total projects launched in the city in 2014, about 59.3 per cent project had affordable units (<40 lakh), 40.3 per cent had units in mid-segment category (40-70 lakh) and 19 per cent in the luxury category (70-120 lakh). Interestingly, new supply in ultra-luxury (23 per cent) category (120 lakh onwards) was more than that in luxury segment.

• As expected, Central Zone was dominated by the ultra-luxury projects only. Whereas North and South Zone saw maximum new launched projects in the affordable segment. East and West Pune saw maximum new launched projects in the mid-segment category.

For better understanding of market trends, CommonFloor has divided amenities into 3 categories - 1, 2 and 3 starting from basic to convenience to luxury as shown in the table below.

• Category 1
• Category 2
• Category 3

• As per data, out of the total new launched supply in 2014, about 51 per cent are within Category 1, about 30 per cent in Category 2 and almost 6 per cent in Category 3. Unlike Bangalore where there was exorbitant supply in Category 1, Pune saw relatively decent supply in both Category 1 and 2. This could be due to the prevailing reasonable prices in the city.

• Interestingly, as per data, gymnasium is considered a luxury in Pune as against Bangalore where it is seen to be a basic amenity desired by the consumers.

• In Central Bangalore, almost 75 per cent of the projects have only basic amenities (Category 1) followed by West, East and South zones. This is mainly due to paucity of land as well as skyrocketing prices in the Central zone. Adding more amenities would only mean a deeper hole in the pocket.

• As per data, South Bangalore has maximum number of projects having ultra-luxury amenities followed by East Bangalore.

Apart from these, there are several other infrastructure projects that are in the pipeline. Some of them are listed below.