Soon, check online if housing project has got all approvals

NEW DELHI: The government plans to fast track approvals for real estate projects and put up all approval status online in a move that will help consumers check if a project is approved before booking a house and bring down home prices.

A committee on streamlining approval procedures for real estate projects, headed by former Competition Commission of India chairman Dhanendra Kumar, will submit its report to the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation this week and it will form the basis of a policy guideline that all states will need to follow, a senior government official said.

"These guidelines would be one of the conditions precedent for states to access central government funding from the housing ministry," the person said on condition of anonymity.

The committee is likely to suggest bringing all state and central clearances on two separate electronic platforms so that builders can get faster clearances without having to go to multiple authorities for individual approvals.

Uploading approval status on the Internet will be a great relief to home buyers who till now have had to go by the developer's word that all approvals have been taken before the launch of a project, only to see it gets stuck after paying significant sums due to the lack of some approval or the other.

Faster approvals will also help builders bring down home prices significantly because approval delays, which sometimes run into years, result in costs escalating by up to 40%.

"Home prices can become cheaper by up to 40% if approvals come faster," Lalit Kumar Jain, the national president of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Associations of India and the managing director of Pune-based developer Kumar Urban Development, said.

Developers say large housing projects in the metros involve getting more than 50 approvals from various authorities in the central, state governments and local authorities including the environment ministry, National Monuments Authority, aviation ministry, and several departments such as forest, water, pollution, fire, revenue and town planning. A housing project with 100-150 apartments in Mumbai could take up to three and a half years for getting all clearances, Jain said. The situation in Bengaluru, Chennai and Gurgaon is a trifle better, with time taken for approvals ranging from two to three years.

In this period, most developers who have brought fresh land for the project end up paying interest, he added.

For the original post visit: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/real-estate/news/soon-check-online-if-housing-project-has-got-all-approvals/articleshow/17918972.cms

More than half of Chennai’s population lives in rented houses: Census

Chennai

More than half the city’s population lives in rented houses. With fewer independent houses and cost of apartments becoming prohibitively high, a majority of the people have not been able to buy their own homes, a fact reflected by the final census data on Tamil Nadu that was released in the city on Tuesday.

The census figures showed that only 47.2% of Chennaiites stay in houses they own. The report, which covers 11.06 lakh households in Chennai district enumerated in the census exercise in May and June last year, shows that there has been a tiny 0.1% rise in the number of people in Chennai who own their homes. In the 2001 census, 47.1% of people in the city stayed in houses they owned.

“Anybody who does not pay a rent to stay in a place is considered to own the accommodation,” said C Chandramouli, registrar-general and census commissioner. The census does not differentiate between squatters and legitimate property owners.

The figures are indicative of a huge rental market in the city that caters to more than 50% of the population that comprises non-permanent residents. Many Chennaiites own more than one apartment in the city.

Additional houses are rented out to migrant employees who have moved into the city in recent years. Many of them are in the IT and manufacturing sectors. In the past year, the state created one lakh additional jobs, of which Chennai garnered the largest share. Many of these jobs were taken by people below 30 who did not own houses.

There has nonetheless been a significant growth in purchase of apartments by migrants, said T Chitty Babu, secretary, Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India.

“Few people from outside the city purchased apartments in Chennai till 2005,” he said. “But a recent study by the association revealed that almost 40% of new home buyers are affluent migrants, most of whom are youngsters employed in the IT and manufacturing sectors, up from 10% to 15% four years ago. This trend is visible across Chennai.”

The relatively low cost of land in neighbouring Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts has drawn home buyers to those areas. In Kancheepuram, 70.5% of households are occupied by owners and 67.8% of the Tiruvallur population lives in their own homes.

In rural areas like Ariyalur (91.4%) and Dharmapuri (90.5%) the percentage of owner-occupied houses is even higher.

Source: The Times of India, Chennai

Property deals peak ahead of guideline value revision

CHENNAI: With the new market-based guideline values for property registration set to come into effect from January, builders and buyers in the state are rushing to seal deals before the charges go up. The number of property deals has seen a sharp rise ever since the plan to revise guideline values was announced. In November alone, the state government earned Rs 715 crore from stamp duty and registration charges.

"There is panic in the minds of buyers and builders, as stamp duty and registration charges will go up once the new guideline values come into effect. A huge number of transactions take place daily these days, especially in Chennai and Coimbatore," a senior government official said.

In all, the government realized Rs 3,965 crore till November in the current fiscal from property registrations, 23.17% higher than the corresponding period last year. The November earning is the highest for a month in the last 20 years. In 2010-11, the government's revenue from stamp duty and registration charges was Rs 5,020 crore, and this fiscal it's expected to go up to Rs 6,500 crore.

Guideline value is the minimum value of a land fixed by the government, based on which stamp duty and registration charges are calculated. The charges add up to 9% of the property value. The draft of new guideline values is expected to be published on December 15, and the final values will be announced in January. The values were last revised in 2007.

While Chennai, expectedly, recorded the maximum number of property transactions -- 3.45 lakh deals in the last eight months -- Coimbatore was close behind with 3.18 lakh deals. The reason can attributed to the fact that Coimbatore has become a preferred destination for tier-two investments in the state with many business houses setting up facilities in the city, thereby giving a push to the real estate market.

Members of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI), a body of organized real estate developers, have taken exception to the new guideline values proposed by the government saying they do not reflect the market reality.

If the guidelines values of properties on Oppanakara Veethi, Cross Cut Road, DB Road and Trichy Road in Coimbatore have seen a three-fold rise in the revision, properties on Dr Radhakrishnan Salai, Boat Club Road, Poes Garden, Gopalapuram IInd Street and Montieth Road in Egmore in Chennai have been valued eight to ten times higher, they say.

CREDAI president T Chitti Babu said they were not against revision, but "a multifold increase was not acceptable." "There is a need for a study to understand the market prices. Otherwise, it will lead to malpractices and actual transactions will not come into revenue records. The officials have also found justification in our demands," he said. A crucial meeting convened by chief secretary Debendranath Sarangi on tax revenue on December 19 will throw some light on the final guideline values.

Tamil Nadu is among a very few states that do not revise guideline values periodically. Hence, major discrepancies exist between guideline values and market prices of properties.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Property-deals-peak-ahead-of-guideline-value-revision/articleshow/11054212.cms

Property deals peak ahead of guideline value revision

CHENNAI: With the new market-based guideline values for property registration set to come into effect from January, builders and buyers in the state are rushing to seal deals before the charges go up. The number of property deals has seen a sharp rise ever since the plan to revise guideline values was announced. In November alone, the state government earned Rs 715 crore from stamp duty and registration charges.

"There is panic in the minds of buyers and builders, as stamp duty and registration charges will go up once the new guideline values come into effect. A huge number of transactions take place daily these days, especially in Chennai and Coimbatore," a senior government official said.

In all, the government realized Rs 3,965 crore till November in the current fiscal from property registrations, 23.17% higher than the corresponding period last year. The November earning is the highest for a month in the last 20 years. In 2010-11, the government's revenue from stamp duty and registration charges was Rs 5,020 crore, and this fiscal it's expected to go up to Rs 6,500 crore.

Guideline value is the minimum value of a land fixed by the government, based on which stamp duty and registration charges are calculated. The charges add up to 9% of the property value. The draft of new guideline values is expected to be published on December 15, and the final values will be announced in January. The values were last revised in 2007.

While Chennai, expectedly, recorded the maximum number of property transactions -- 3.45 lakh deals in the last eight months -- Coimbatore was close behind with 3.18 lakh deals. The reason can attributed to the fact that Coimbatore has become a preferred destination for tier-two investments in the state with many business houses setting up facilities in the city, thereby giving a push to the real estate market.

Members of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI), a body of organized real estate developers, have taken exception to the new guideline values proposed by the government saying they do not reflect the market reality.

If the guidelines values of properties on Oppanakara Veethi, Cross Cut Road, DB Road and Trichy Road in Coimbatore have seen a three-fold rise in the revision, properties on Dr Radhakrishnan Salai, Boat Club Road, Poes Garden, Gopalapuram IInd Street and Montieth Road in Egmore in Chennai have been valued eight to ten times higher, they say.

CREDAI president T Chitti Babu said they were not against revision, but "a multifold increase was not acceptable." "There is a need for a study to understand the market prices. Otherwise, it will lead to malpractices and actual transactions will not come into revenue records. The officials have also found justification in our demands," he said. A crucial meeting convened by chief secretary Debendranath Sarangi on tax revenue on December 19 will throw some light on the final guideline values.

Tamil Nadu is among a very few states that do not revise guideline values periodically. Hence, major discrepancies exist between guideline values and market prices of properties.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Property-deals-peak-ahead-of-guideline-value-revision/articleshow/11054212.cms

Property deals peak ahead of guideline value revision

CHENNAI: With the new market-based guideline values for property registration set to come into effect from January, builders and buyers in the state are rushing to seal deals before the charges go up. The number of property deals has seen a sharp rise ever since the plan to revise guideline values was announced. In November alone, the state government earned Rs 715 crore from stamp duty and registration charges.

"There is panic in the minds of buyers and builders, as stamp duty and registration charges will go up once the new guideline values come into effect. A huge number of transactions take place daily these days, especially in Chennai and Coimbatore," a senior government official said.

In all, the government realized Rs 3,965 crore till November in the current fiscal from property registrations, 23.17% higher than the corresponding period last year. The November earning is the highest for a month in the last 20 years. In 2010-11, the government's revenue from stamp duty and registration charges was Rs 5,020 crore, and this fiscal it's expected to go up to Rs 6,500 crore.

Guideline value is the minimum value of a land fixed by the government, based on which stamp duty and registration charges are calculated. The charges add up to 9% of the property value. The draft of new guideline values is expected to be published on December 15, and the final values will be announced in January. The values were last revised in 2007.

While Chennai, expectedly, recorded the maximum number of property transactions -- 3.45 lakh deals in the last eight months -- Coimbatore was close behind with 3.18 lakh deals. The reason can attributed to the fact that Coimbatore has become a preferred destination for tier-two investments in the state with many business houses setting up facilities in the city, thereby giving a push to the real estate market.

Members of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI), a body of organized real estate developers, have taken exception to the new guideline values proposed by the government saying they do not reflect the market reality.

If the guidelines values of properties on Oppanakara Veethi, Cross Cut Road, DB Road and Trichy Road in Coimbatore have seen a three-fold rise in the revision, properties on Dr Radhakrishnan Salai, Boat Club Road, Poes Garden, Gopalapuram IInd Street and Montieth Road in Egmore in Chennai have been valued eight to ten times higher, they say.

CREDAI president T Chitti Babu said they were not against revision, but "a multifold increase was not acceptable." "There is a need for a study to understand the market prices. Otherwise, it will lead to malpractices and actual transactions will not come into revenue records. The officials have also found justification in our demands," he said. A crucial meeting convened by chief secretary Debendranath Sarangi on tax revenue on December 19 will throw some light on the final guideline values.

Tamil Nadu is among a very few states that do not revise guideline values periodically. Hence, major discrepancies exist between guideline values and market prices of properties.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Property-deals-peak-ahead-of-guideline-value-revision/articleshow/11054212.cms