The government plans to bring unorganised property agents and brokers under the ambit of the proposed real estate regulator, imposing stringent penalties including imprisonment on those who dupe buyers or operate without a valid registration.
Sahara India has accused market regulator SEBI of not accepting data, since Monday, of the three crore investors of the company who had invested in its optionally fully convertible debentures (OFCDs). Sahara sent the data to SEBI following a Supreme Court order to furnish documents relating to investors, supporting redemption documents, application forms, approval and allotment of bonds to the market regulator.
The Environment Ministry has now set new norms for buildings higher than four floors. However, experts question the compliance aspect. Sachin Sandhir, Managing Director (South Asia) of RICS is apprehensive with the enforcement of stricter norms for structural safety.
DLF Chairman K P Singh has warned that the current policy paralysis has had an adverse impact on the country’s growth momentum denting business confidence, and could lead to its unique demographic dividend turning into a demographic nightmare.
The Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry (MCHI)-CREDAI has set up a four-member committee to look for the best option for developers to compute Value Added Tax (VAT) and, in turn, pass it on to buyers who purchased flats between 2006 and 2010.
Realty sector in India has witnessed more than $2-billion private equity investments in the last 12 months, with investors treading cautiously, according to real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield.
The Sahara Group will have to refund Rs. 17,400 crore to retail investors raised in 2008-09, the Supreme Court has ruled. The apex court had upheld the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) order directing two Sahara companies to refund this amount. Former Supreme Court Judge BN Agarwal will monitor the refund to investors, the court said.
Price rationalisation has always been a tricky issue in real estate business where demand and supply dynamics drive the market more than any other parameter. The fact that real estate is not a perishable commodity and mostly a business of deep pockets, holding of inventory many a time makes more sense than hard sell keeping in mind the pipeline visibility.
The Noida Extension land acquisition fracas was all about the authorities allowing developers to acquire land at considerably low prices from farmers and also changing the planned use pattern from industrial to residential. Farmers revolted and were able to gain wide support from different quarters.
CREDAI has reacted sharply over the Finance Minister’s asking chiefs of public sector banks to put pressure on real estate developers to lower property prices and not hold invetory. CREDAI has said in a release that instead of asking realtors to download unsold stock at discounted prices, the Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram should take immediate steps to boost to housing stock supply through special incentives to the affordable segment.