As the earlier five per cent stamp duty came into effect starting from April 1, the city's housing sales are witnessing a downward trend. According to the data from the Department of Registration and Stamps Mumbai on April 3, a total of 544 housing sales were registered, generating revenue of nearly Rs 23.22 crore only. The conveyance sales registered were of three days together. Previously, however, when the lower stamp duty offer was available, the daily average rate of new registrations was between 500 and 707 units.
Manju Yagnik, Vice Chairperson, Nahar Group and Sr. V P, NAREDCO, Maharashtra said, "With stamp duty cut, home buyers rushed to avail the offer, which led to the historic surge in property registrations in Mumbai. However, with no extension by the state government, there is no euphoria among the home buyers, evident with such low home registration figures starting in April. These figures indicate that buyers have decided to postpone their decision for now and awaiting similar offers to save on home buying."
To encourage homebuyers and bring back the momentum in real estate sector, developers continue to urge the government to reconsider their decision and extend the stamp duty benefit.
Reportedly, the reduced stamp duty led to historic surge in housing sales. In the first phase of two per cent stamp duty, more than 19.5k sales were registered in the month of December 2020. Similarly, in second phase of three per cent stamp duty more than 17.7k housing sales was recorded in March.
The MahaVikas Aghadi government decision to enforce lower stamp duty offer from September 1, 2020 till March 2021 in two phases had led to the sale of nearly 80,000 units and the total revenue has been over Rs 2,578 crore. When compared to the period before the stamp duty cut, i.e January 2020 to August 2020 the government had collected Rs 1,756 crore.
