Mumbai and National Capital Region (NCR), which includes Noida, Gurgaon, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad and Faridabad, are fast losing sheen as real estate markets even as southern cities are moving on to higher rungs of the property ladder.

This is what is emerging from the real estate analytic firm PropEquity's ranking of top 10 cities in the Indian residential property market, where Mumbai has slip from top position in 2009 to the eighth position in 2014 while Bengaluru had climbed to the first position from the sixth position during the same period.

The cities were ranked on the basis of prices, supply, absorption, inventory overhang, new project launches, execution delays, market size and other such parameters.

Interestingly, Noida, which ranked fourth in 2009, has been knocked out of last year's top 10 property markets even as Gurgaon fell three notches from number seven to number 10. Ghaziabad tumbled to twelfth place from eleventh and Greater Noida and Faridabad retained their thirteenth and fourteenth positions respectively.

Ashutosh Limaye, national director – Research, JLL India, said the declining "desirability and viability" of Mumbai market was due to the affordability gap and a standoff between the buyers and developers on the pricing.

"Property buyers in Mumbai are not ready to over-leverage themselves. Everybody is waiting for the prices to soften to take a decision on property purchase. The decline in desirability and viability of Mumbai's property market is because of huge affordability gap and overpricing by the developers," he said.

With Mumbai's residential property market on the cusp of price correction, many experts feel investing in it at this point in time would not give a good return.

"Investors cannot look at good returns in Mumbai for the next five years. It is a long-term investment market," said a property consultant, who did not want to be named.

Limaye said the NCR market was slack due to oversupply, stalled projects and a huge participation by investors in it. He believes the southern cities have surged ahead because they are primarily driven by end-users.

"When a market is end-user driven, it is easy for property players to pick up signals on prices and products. This helps them to respond quickly to market needs. This is healthy for the market. However, when the investors governs the market, those signals don't come fast and that is what has happened in the NCR, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and Mumbai," he said.

Samir Jasuja, founder and CEO of PropEquity Analytics Pvt Ltd, said it was disturbing to observe that despite a fall in property absorption rate in MMR, prices were rising unabated.

"This is not a healthy sign and is one of the primary reasons for MMR losing sheen," he said.

Further, as per PropEquity's study, Hyderabad climbed steepest as it jumped six steps to fourth place from tenth. Chennai zoomed to third position from fifth, Ahmedabad to fifth from eighth, Navi Mumbai to ninth from twelfth and Kolkata to seventh from ninth. Pune retained its second position as Thane dropped to sixth place from third.