Property Sales Dip After Circle Rate Hike

Property Sales Dip After Circle Rate Hike, Registrations Have Come Down By Almost 30% In 6 Months

The euphoria over the city's booming real estate sector is slightly wearing off with the government hiking the circle rates thrice in the last one year. Buyers now are wary as they have to shell out more on stamp duty and registration of properties. Interestingly, market watchers say the demand for high-rise apartments has not been affected much.According to revenue officials, the registration of plots in Gurgaon has come down from the average 150 per day to about 110 since October last year. As a result, the revenue of the state government has also gone down, they claim. The circle rates, also known as collector rates, in some areas have been increased by nearly 150%.
While the government move has applied brakes in registration of plots, developers say the sale of apartments in condominiums has not witnessed a downward trend.
Their logic is that executives, who prefer houses in high-rises, usually raise a bank loan and have transparent deals without limited exchange of black money.
Sunil K Dahiya, managing director of Vigneshwara Developers, said, "Corporates who buy properties in societies mostly with a loan would not be impacted because they anyways have white-money transactions."

He added that the hike in circle rates would infact help boost the image of the Indian property market.In a bid to reduce the black money component in property transactions and avoid revenue loss to the government, Haryana had hiked circle rates last on March 31 by 20-30%.

Dharmendar Bhandari, managing director, Bestech Group, said frequent and steep hikes in circle rates had affected the real estate sector as sales had dipped in the last few months.Anshuman Magazine from CB Richard Ellis too agreed property sales had come down because of the hike in circle rates mostly in case of plotted houses.


Source: Hindustan Times By Sanjeev K Ahuja Property sales dip after circle rate hike