Reduced Stamp Duty Has Spiced Up Luxury Apartment Sale In Mumbai

Despite COVID-19, Mumbai’s luxury homebuyers are coming forward to register their properties this festive season. In fact, quite a few properties in the range of Rs 35 crore-Rs 55 crore have been registered after the state government decided to reduce stamp duty, suggesting that the realty market in Maximum City is fast getting on track.

According to data made available from the registration office, several transactions finalised before the pandemic are also getting registered now.

In order to boost the stagnant real-estate market hit by COVID-19, the Maharashtra government, on August 26, decided to temporarily reduce stamp duty on housing units from 5 percent to 2 percent until December 31, 2020.

The big deals

On September 21, lawyer Cyril Shroff and his daughter Paridhi Karan Adani, who is Gautam Adani’s daughter-in-law, jointly bought an uber luxury unit in Mumbai’s Worli area for Rs 36.3 crore. The unit, located in 360 West by Oberoi Realty, is spread across 583.53 sq m. It is registered under the name APC Benefit Trust.

On September 29, another property located in the 360 West project, worth Rs 42.5 crore, was registered. The size of the property is 699.56 sq m. A property worth Rs 50.5 crore in the same project was registered on September 2. The size of the unit was 730.02 sq m.

Another property worth Rs 45 crore was registered on September 18. This is a 7,595.3 sq ft property located in the Indiabulls Blu project located in Worli, South Mumbai.

Similarly, a property worth Rs 39 crore, located in Carmichael Residences by Peninsula Land in Tardeo was registered on October 9. The unit is 3,185.68 sq ft.

Last week, a property worth Rs 54 crore located in the project known as Runwal – The Residences in Malabar Hill, Mumbai, was also registered. The size of the unit is 442.25 sq m and the developer is Runwal Developers Pvt Ld.

86% of pre-COVID levels

A recent report by CRE Matrix had said that housing sales are at 86 percent of  pre-COVID levels in Mumbai, boosted by the recent stamp-duty reduction. This is in addition to discounts offered by developers, and a pandemic-driven craving to own a home that is lockdown-proof and work-from-home ready.

The number of residential sales that were registered touched 3,600 in September 2020. The sales number was at 173 in May after the registration offices reopened on May 18.

As many as 1,327 sales were recorded by the registration office in June; 1,789 in July; and 1,133 in August 2020, the report by real-estate analytics firm focussed on Indian markets said.

During the festive season in October 2019, the registered sales numbers stood at 3,966 and at 3,810 in November 2019.

“I believe September sales were a start. October and November will see housing sales rise further to even above pre-COVID levels. We can attribute this positive movement to the government cutting the stamp duty rates, banks slashing interest rates to the lowest in multiple decades and developers giving discounts and freebies this festive season,” said Abhishek Kiran Gupta, CEO of CRE Matrix.

(Source: Moneycontrol)