The recession seems to have had no impact whatsoever on Mumbai’s home buyers.
If the numbers available with the department of housing registration at the Directorate of Inspector General, Stamp Duty, Maharashtra, are to be believed, 9,118 homes were registered in December 2009, the highest since January 2007.
This, despite the fact that there was a 10% rise in prices of homes in the second half of last year.
The figure is up 42% from its previous month and yielded revenue of Rs205 crore to the exchequer. The stamp duty registration data includes conveyance, certificate of sale, apartment deed, agreement dead.
An analyst from domestic brokerage said, “The reason why the number is high could be because some banks were discontinuing their fixed-floating interest rate offers. To avoid that people who were planning to purchase must have rushed their decision.”
Though the registration figures have skyrocketed, the number of documents registered for January, 2010 was just 6,398 registrations. Last January, registrations were a meagre 2,866.
Orbit Corporation, a Mumbai-based realtor, expects property prices to go up from July, 2010.
Pujit Agarwal, MD of the company, said, “Prices are stable and we are seeing sales of 65-75 units steadily.”
Though the registration figures have been stable, the lease and licence agreements registered during January are less than those registered in the same month last year.
Last February, 5,752 lessees had registered documents as compared to 4,514 documents this January.
Another analyst with an international brokerage firm said, “Since January sales have started stabilising. Earlier developers were selling 8-9 flats a day at lower prices. Today the same developers are selling one flat a day, but they don’t mind because prices are up. And, this financial year prices are expected to go up even more. So, now he is not interested in reducing prices.”
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