Pre-election Sops Give Real Estate A Leg-up

By Author: Manoj Gehlawat
Total Articles: 9
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The government's pre-election bonanza for residential real estate seems to have worked well, resulting in over 10 percent increase in sales in the March quarter besides an upswing in new launches.

Conventionally, the period between the announcements of election dates till the declaration of final results saw the real estate market move with caution as buyers adopted a wait-and-watch policy in anticipation that the newly elected government may offer some sops.

"Interestingly, 2019 is proving to be different. We estimate more than 10 percent increase in sales across the top seven cities in the first quarter of 2019, while new launches are estimated to see over 20 percent rise".

This is largely due to the triple benefits offered by the government in less than just two months of 2019. The government doled out sops in the budget for developers undertaking affordable housing projects as well as measures to boost second home buys. It also reduced the GST rates on both affordable and premium housing, which was further propelled by a decline in home loan rates post RBI's repo rate cut.

Niranjan Hiranandani, ...
... co-founder, and MD of Hiranandani Group and President of industry association Naredco said sales had picked up in the last two months following the measures undertaken by the government. "We are seeing that buyer interest is back in the market. Especially the reduction in GST from 12 percent (with input tax credit) to five percent (without ITC) for premium homes is attracting a lot of people", he said.

Puri pointed out that affordable housing was keeping the momentum going with both new supply and sales going up. "Even the leading developers- who were primarily into luxury segment- have launched projects within Rs 80 lakh budget. These projects are seeing good sales traction".

Affordable housing projects have been the biggest beneficiary of sops as not only the GST has been slashed from 8 percent to just one percent but builders also get full tax exemption on profits from projects registered till March 2020. "These sops have pushed sales in affordable housing even further", Puri said.

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