In The News

The issues pertaining to real estate are deeper and more inherent than those pertaining to consumer durables or automobile industry,” said Anuj Puri, Chairman and Country Head, Jones Lang LaSalle India, on the Interim Budget 2014.

Resolving this issues involves fiscal adjustments to key real estate-linked policies and may even require constitutional amendments. It was, therefore self-evident that the current vote-on account (VOA) would not hold anything of real consequences in store for the real estate sector,

That said the support extended to the residential sector in the affordable segment is positive, and will hopefully help revive construction activity beyond the leading three to four metropolitan cities,” he said

With elections in sight, affordable housing will definitely continue to be an area of focus. We expect more developers to enter into the budget homes segment in order to take advantage of tax incentives, and also the greater demand-supply mismatch there,” he said.

However, the key to success of such schemes remains the timely and transparent implementation of the announced scheme. It could come under the ambit of the central Government umbrella schemes such as Jawaharlal Nehru urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM ) and Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana(Ray) through incentive-linked targets allocated to each state or urban municipality. These umbrella schemes have great power in terms of influencing action by states,” Puri said.

In terms of interest rates, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has given a cursory nod to the present level of inflation, making a case for a cut in interest rates to revive growth across the interest-rate sensitive sectors.

However this is in conflict with the communication we have been receiving from the monetary authorities over the past weeks. The market is expecting the next policy meeting in April to be a non-evident,” he said.

Stamp Duty cut

The West Bengal Budget has also reduced the interest rate on delayed payment of stamp duty from two per cent to one per cent.

The finance minister of West Bengal Mr. Mitra also said that additional stamp duty of one per cent on properties exceeding Rs 25 lakh has been waived by raising the ceiling in excess of Rs 30 lakh.

So this would hugely benefit the mid income buyers to now buy a flat upto 30 lakhs