Realty News Roundup: FinMin Wants The RBI To Cut Rates; Noida Authority Lowers Land Conversion Rate

Realty News Roundup is PropGuide's selection of top stories from the real estate sector

Top News

The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in an interview with CNBC said that he wants the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to cut interest rates. Arun Jaitley said that he would like to see the Indian economy and domestic demand to grow, for which, he would want to see a drop in rates. He further added that the RBI is aware of the economic situation within the country, and that he expects the central bank to take the right decision very soon.

The Noida Authority has reportedly lowered the land conversion rate from 25 per cent to 10 per cent. The notification was issued a year after the Uttar Pradesh government issued a gazette notification approving mixed use policy in the city. Read more

The Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) has raised land reserve prices in several areas by six times, with effect from September 17. This is the first time land reserve prices have been hiked in Jaipur, since 2009. As a result, the land prices in JDA schemes are expected to rise significantly. Read more

The Noida-based real estate developer, ATS Infrastructure has bought 125 acre of land in Sector 152, Noida for Rs 1,300 crore. The land will be utilised to build a residential project and a cricket stadium in Noida. To meet the cost of acquisition, the company is raising funds. While the developer has paid about Rs 70 crore to the authority already, another Rs 250 crore will be paid by mid-October. The total amount will be in instalments over the period of eight years. Read more

Off the front page

In a report in Business World on plummeting property prices in India, PropTiger.com CEO Dhruv Agarwala says, “The drop in sales has been primarily due to a drop in new launches.” The report cites PropTiger Data Labs quarterly report, which says, the sales in the real estate sector dropped by 18 per cent in the previous quarter. Agarwala was further quoted as saying, “We need infrastructure development to connect affordable areas with commercial hubs (functional expressways, metro lines, roads). This should be combined with streamlining the approval process for real estate projects to enable developers to deliver projects on time.”

After much controversy and discussion over the Hirabaug slum at Shukrvakar Peth, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has handed over the slum rehabilitation project to a private developer. The elected members of the Pune Municipal Corporation are still divided over this decision to outsource a slum rehabilitation project to a private developer. Earlier in April this year, the Bombay High Court had directed the PMC to complete the project by December 31, 2017. Read more

Opinion

Read this opinion piece on the lessons we can learn from big-ticket purchases made in the real estate in recent past. The piece, published in DNA, reads, “So, if you are banking on your real estate investment to fulfill a particular goal, you may face hurdles such as lack of buyers or even have to wait for long before you are able to sell the property, especially during recessionary phases.”