Budget 2024: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the interim budget on February 1, 2024. The Finance Minister has said that the government is not going to make any major announcement in the interim budget and for that we will have to wait for the full budget to be presented in July 2024. but The way demand for affordable housing has decreased in the housing segment of the real estate sector in the year 2023 must have given sleepless nights to the government. In such a situation, pressure is increasing on the Finance Minister to promote affordable housing in this interim budget.
Demand for affordable homes is decreasing
In recent times, all the real estate consultants or experts have said in their reports that due to expensive home loans and rise in property prices, the demand for affordable houses priced below Rs 50 lakh has reduced. On Wednesday, January 3, 2024, Knight Frank India also said in its report that the share of sales of houses worth less than Rs 50 lakh in the total housing sales has declined from 54 percent in 2018 to 30 percent in 2023. While sales of 117,131 housing units priced below Rs 50 lakh were seen in 2022, they declined by 16 percent to 97,983 units in 2023.
Incentives for buying a house
In such a situation, those people who are dreaming of buying an affordable house have high expectations from the interim budget of the Modi government. However, the year 2023 has been very good for the real estate sector and 2024 is also expected to be great. But the demand is highest for luxury and premium segment houses. In such a situation, it is expected from the Finance Minister's budget that she will take concrete steps to promote affordable housing. Home buyers want the Finance Minister to increase the home loan interest deduction limit from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 3 to 4 lakh to encourage home loan takers. So that people give priority to buying a house to save tax. Under 80C of the Income Tax Act, the limit of tax exemption on the principal amount of home loan should be increased from Rs 1.50 lakh to at least Rs 2 lakh. A demand has been made to the Finance Minister to increase the scope of Affordable Housing. In which houses worth Rs 75 lakh in non-metro cities and Rs 1.50 crore in metro cities should be included in the category of affordable housing.
Real estate provides maximum employment
Experts in the real estate sector say that this sector provides the maximum direct and indirect employment in the country. Many other sectors are associated with the real estate sector. In such a situation, the Finance Minister should take concrete steps in the budget to promote affordable housing because there is six to seven months time for the new government to present its budget. If concrete decisions are not taken, its impact on the sales of affordable housing will be visible in 2024 also.
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