Property registrations drop post-demonetisation drive

Visakhapatnam: While property registrations dropped drastically post-demonetisation in the north coastal districts, its impact is still being felt in the realty sector. Property registrations in Visakhapatnam and Anakapalli have witnessed a decline during the 2016-17 fiscal as compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.

While registration and stamps department of Visakhapatnam with its eight sub-registrar offices registered a revenue of Rs 347.03 crore during the current fiscal until February, it had grossed a revenue of Rs 380.28 crore during 2015-16, witnessing a decline of 1%, as per information available on the Core dashboard.

Anakapalli registered a revenue of Rs 136.80 crore during 2015-16 up to February. During the current revenue collections have dropped to Rs 122.09 crore during the current fiscal witnessing a decline of 4%.

Among the eight sub registrar offices in Visakhapatnam, Madhurawada sub-registrar office garnered a revenue of Rs 70.16 crore in the current fiscal as against Rs 71.67 crore in the previous fiscal followed by Visakhapatnam (RO) with Rs 69.45 crore in the current year as against Rs 89.17 crore last year.

Similarly, under 11 sub-registrar offices of Anakapalli, Lankelapalem garnered Rs 20.73 crore in the current fiscal followed by Ankapalli with Rs 18.95 crore and Sabbavaram with Rs 17.57 crore.

Realty sources said the major impact on registrations were felt during November and December, after which the demand has been gradually increasing from January. “There are several ventures that are being launched on the outskirts of the city for purchase of plots during the last one month. But, many of the consumers are booking the properties but not registering as yet as they want to do it in the next financial year. Many of them have said they are delaying the registrations as part of their tax calculations,” said K Ramamurthy (name changed), a realty agent dealing with properties in Tagarapuvalasa.

At the same time, another realty agent said many of the customers who had saved money in banks to purchase land are yet to receive full cash from the banks. “The banks are saying that money will be disbursed from April onwards, so many customers have also postponed their plans to purchase properties and have only given token advance to book the plots.”