Lanco Infratech Ltd, the power producer, is reportedly seeking buyers for a real estate business it values at 27 billion rupees ($483 million). According to the sources close to the development the company has asked investment banks to submit proposals to manage the sale.
Realty sector may appear to be bullish and project that downside is over with rosy forecast ahead, yet the decline in fortune is far from being over. As a matter of fact, the learning in the last four years has made most of the leading players to restructure their project portfolio and shed the flab.
Disney Consumer Products India, the licensing & merchandising arm of The Walt Disney Company India, has done its first licensing deal in the real estate sector with Mumbai-based real estate company Sunteck Realty to launch Disney Inspired Homes in Goregaon, the Northern suburb of Mumbai.
The Centre’s plan to regulate the real estate sector by safeguarding consumers from land sharks has hit a road block with several states opposing some provisions of a proposed bill. Track2Realty has learnt that in an effort to bring states on board, the Centre intends to drop the provision of giving direction to the States under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill.
Indian real estate companies, which borrowed heavily during the peak of the economic cycle and rosy business forecast, are now caught in the vortex of piling debt post-slowdown. Most of the realtors who went on a land bank acquisition with borrowed money are struggling to repay even the interest and banks look reluctant to restructure the debt any more.
The government has said “no specific instance” of flow of terror funds into the real estate sector has come to its notice. “As per the current assessment of revenue intelligence agencies…no specific instance of flow of terror funds into the real estate sector has been found,” Minister of State for Finance S S Palanimanickam said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha. However, he said, “investigations by the Income Tax Department reveal unaccounted or undisclosed income or assets in various sectors of the economy, including real estate.”
Redefining Public purpose, as suggest by Parliamentary Committee, will impact infrastructure, industrial and township development severely.
Provisions of LA and R&R Bill should not apply to private acquisitions done by developers after direct negotiation with land owners/farmers. Privately negotiated prices, in almost all cases, are much higher than acquisition compensation suggested in the bill.
When the Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee proposed home buyers to withhold 1% of the sale consideration as Tax Deducted at Source (TDS), it became a free-for-all kind of football match with developers and property consultants alleging that it could encourage black money component in real estate, while tax consultants believed otherwise and pointed out that the reach of the banking sector in rural area makes it easier to detect unsavoury deals.
Real estate developers and consultants agree that there is fortune at the bottom of the pyramid. But absence of policy guidelines and hassle free implementation is what comes in the way of ensuring reality of a slum free realty, finds Track2Realty.
Within hours of Track2Realty reporting that the much awaited Real Estate Regulatory Bill will not be tabled in the current session of parliament, the government has confirmed it by announcing that the Bill is likely to be presented in the next session of Parliament. The Bill is expected to be tabled before the Union Cabinet shortly, said Aruna Sundararajan, Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation.