NEW DELHI: Keeping in mind the large number of unsold housing units in major cities, the Centre has written to states to reduce stamp duty on registration of properties.
As per an estimate, there are over 7.38 lakh housing inventories lying unsold in the country with Mumbai having maximum 2.76 lakh such units.
Concerns from the demand side and muted sales amid the Covid-19 pandemic have impacted the real estate sector badly.
With a view to attract more buyers, many states including Maharashtra and Karnataka have reduced the Stamp Duty rates on transaction of immovable property to boost sales. Initial estimates suggest that there has been very good response.
Union Housing and Urban Affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri agreed that there is a need to spur economic activities and reduction in stamp duty will help in pushing up the sale.
“It is clearly getting reflected in the increased number of properties being registered recently in the states… I have also written to all the States/UTs to take similar steps for reduction of Stamp Duty to encourage the sales and to accelerate economic activities,” said the minister in the backdrop of a virtual conference organised by realtors’ body NAREDCO.
The minister mentioned that the sale registration in Maharashtra for September 2020 has surpassed the registrations done in pre-Covid era and recorded the highest registrations of this calendar year i.e. 1,19,834.
One of the major factors contributing towards this growth is reduction in Stamp Duty by State Government and various other steps of Central Government, he added.
The minister also asked the industry to offload inventories to spur economic activities.
“I think time has also now come to offload some inventories. Don’’t hang on to it,” Puri said, adding that the finance ministry has recently relaxed income tax rules increasing differential between circle rate and transaction value to 20 per cent.
A research by realty consultancy firm Proptiger said that the unsold inventory across the eight cities stands at 7,38,335 units as on 30th June 2020.
On a Year on Year basis, unsold inventory stock decreased by 13 percent from 8,46,460 units in Q2 2019.