Mumbai: Mumbai is recording a historic surge in property registrations driven by home sales in the last month due to the lower stamp duty window that began on September 1, 2020, and ending on March 31, 2021. From March 1, 2021, till date, Mumbai has recorded property registration of 12,696 units at a daily rate of 529 units which is nearly 4.3 times higher than the daily rate of registration recorded at 123 units in March 2020.
From September 1, 2020, till date, total 75,688 units have been registered and the numbers growing incrementally and the total revenue has been over Rs 2,578 crores. When compared to the period before the stamp duty cut, i.e January 2020 to August 2020 the government had collected Rs 1,756 crores. A clear indication of the strong impact the stamp duty registrations have had on the revenues.
Shishir Baijal, Chairman & Managing Director, Knight Frank India said, "The reduction in stamp duty rate has helped mitigate the pain in the long-beleaguered real estate sector of Mumbai. As expected, with the revival of the economy, the sales momentum grew stronger and the euphoria amongst homebuyers continued. A combination of lowest home loan rates, reduced house prices along with rebates and payment flexibility offered by developers, as well as increased household saving rates, have provided the right growth environment for the residential segment to grow." He further asserted that it would be helpful if the Government extends the stamp duty reduction by few more months.
According to Knight Frank, one of the leading real estate consultancy agencies in the country, noted that the sales particularly peaked in the last few days of the month with daily rate of new registrations increasing to 707 units. At the current pace, March can witness sales upwards of 17,000 units. Last year in December - the closing month for the first phase of reduced stamp duty of 2 per cent had similarly driven increase in registrations, as homebuyers rushed to make the most of the lower stamp duty offer.
As a direct result of the pandemic experience, home buying has improved. The value of apartments sold in January-March 2021 period added to Rs 39,880 crore. Since the reduction of stamp duty rates from September 2021, apartments worth Rs 1.07 lakh crore have been sold. Total value of all apartments sold in year 2020 was estimated to be around Rs 1 lakh crore surpassing the 2019 mark of Rs 90,769 crore.
