The Union Finance Minister, Piyush Goyal presented the interim budget for the Narendra Modi-led government yesterday. Despite being a pre-election budget, the budget appears to have managed a tight-rope walk by adopting a conservative approach and still managing to offer sufficient sops to be a welcome crowd pleaser.
How does this budget impact the real estate industry? More importantly, how does it help existing or new home-owners and prospective home-buyers. We asked some of the experts of the real-estate world to help us decipher the budget and understand its impact on housing.
Ashish R. Puravankara, MD of Puravankara Limited and President, CREDAI Bangalore
This interim Union Budget has bought cheer to taxpayers and we welcome this move. An observed pattern in India is: increased savings bring people closer to their aspiration of becoming home owners. This of course augurs positively for the Affordable Housing segment and will go a long way in addressing the housing issues of the nation. Provident Housing, which is Puravankara’s premium affordable housing arm, is extremely happy to see this move in the right direction.
Secondly, the benefits of rollover of capital gains from investment in one residential house to two residential houses will help home buyers dream of buying their second home.
Lastly, the proposal to exempt tax levy on notional rent if a buyer has more than one-self occupied house acts as an added bonus to the home owners, increases liquidity and their spending power. From an industry perspective, there is some relief via the extension on levy of tax on notional rent for unsold inventories, from one year to two years. Government’s assurance that the GST Council is seeking recommendation from GoM’s on the GST applicable on purchase of homes is also heartening.
This Interim Budget has put some extra cash in the citizens’ pockets which in turn increases their spending power and strengthens the economy, which is the best India Inc. can hope for.
To read opinions and thoughts of some more experts of the real-estate world click here.
