A total of 16 mn sft is expected to become available in the city through 2017

Source :- JLL India

Rakesh Roshan also has invested in a huge property in the same area and his ex daughter-in-law Sussanne Khan had opened her interior design store there.

A little birdie from Andheri tells us that Jackie Shroff and his son Tiger are interested in a huge commercial space at a prime location.

“They want to invest in over 10,000 square feet property and want to develop it commercially. It’s all very hush-hush now as the deal is still being negotiated and once that is done, a certain space may be kept for Tiger to have his dance studio and gym and the rest to be leased out commercially. Before Tiger and Krishna, Jackie never invested in property, but now he is a concerned father and wants to invest wisely for them,” says a source.

As per a source who spoke to Times News Network, “The deal is being negotiated and once everything falls in place, Jackie and Tiger will develop it completely. While Tiger wants to convert part of it into a dance studio and gym, they will lease out the rest commercially.”

What Drives The Growth Of Theme-Based Housing?

Growing competition and rising aspiration has led to more sophisticated real estate development in India. With increased globalization, Indian consumers are rapidly being exposed to global standards and desire to live a luxurious life. This is acting as a cue for developers to develop classier projects.

Enviable location, spacious living spaces and pleasing architectural design are the basic expectation of modern home buyers in the prime residential category. With architecture becoming an important criterion of choosing a property, urbane residences have emerged as a successful strategy in the Indian real estate domain. To differentiate their residential products, add a unique dimension and meet the growing aspirational demand of buyers, developers are now coming up with theme-based housing projects in various cities of India.

They are launching these projects in and around metropolitan regions such as Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, etc., primarily due to their higher concentration of corporate employees with high disposable incomes. The buyers of luxury theme-based projects are niche clients, as these projects target a specific category of clienteles such as HNIs and NRIs, and are customised to meet their demands.

Taking Luxury To The Next Level

Parks, swimming pools and health clubs and many other features now form the basis of any residential development, and are no longer considered luxurious. Theme-based projects are more elegant; they are developed on various themes such as international culture, geography, IT, sports, children and senior living, among others. On the architectural front, Egyptian, Arabic, Spanish, Mediterranean, Roman and Moroccan themes are some of those being imprinted on such housing projects at the design level. Sports Cities and Disney-inspired residential projects are among the most popular currently. There is no doubt that theme-based projects help attract both developers and end buyers as like-minded people of same profession, when compared to normal projects.

Examples Of Themed Luxury Projects

• Bengaluru-based Vakil Housing is coming up with Vakil Hamlet, which is based on medieval English lifestyles and Moghul Garden City, which replicates the Shalimar Gardens
• Purvankara Builders is offering the lifestyle of Venice in Bengaluru at PurvaVenezia
• Akshaya Group has tied up with Disney to develop a Disney theme residential project of 47 acres in Chennai
• Another Disney themed project by Supertech is FableCastle on Yamuna Expressway
• Ambrosia by Ajnara Group in Noida is a residential community built on a Spanish theme
• A Rome-themed residential project in Noida is being developed by Supertech
• Lavasa Villas in the Lavasa region of Pune is inspired by the Mediterranean theme
• DLF Ridgewood Estate in Gurgaon is yet another housing project exhibiting Mediterranean-style architecture

These are just a few examples of luxurious theme-based projects in India today.

Due to the novelty factor attached to theme-based housing, this type of development will witness quite a lot of growth in times to come. Developers in India are now entering into joint ventures with foreign interior designers, international architects, design firms and hospitality brands to develop many more theme-based residential projects.

- by Shubhranshu Pani, Managing Director – Strategic Consulting, JLL India

Source :- Accommodation Times News Service

Nod for an IFSC at Mumbai will not be easy as SEZ rules have to be amended.

This is the fourth mall Blackstone has bought in the country in the last two years

The apartment has a saleable Area of 5000 sq ft and carpet area of 3000 sq ft, sources said

First International Finance Center’s stake sale talks underscore the renewed interest in commercial real estate from multinational, IT and pharma firms and start-ups


Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex has seen a few large commercial transactions in recent times, including Abbott India’s Rs. 1,479-crore purchase of office space at Godrej BKC.

Flexible payment schemes offered for under-construction property can lead to tax issues when the owner sells it. It’s not clear in the Income-Tax Act whether the seller should take the indexation benefit from the date of getting possession of the house or if it can be calculated based on each instalment paid after registration.

The flexible payment started with 80:20 scheme, where a buyer pays 80 per cent of the home value upfront either from his own funds or through a loan. The remaining is paid on possession. At present, there are many complicated variants of it such as 5:10:30:25:20:10 to help buyers to pay for a house without taking a home loan. In most cases, the agreement for the flat is registered on payment of one or two instalments that establishes the buyer as a legitimate owner and prevents the developer from selling the house to another buyer when the rates go up.

But when the owner sells the property bought through the flexible payment scheme, calculation of capital gains tax can get complicated if a person holds the property for more than three years, which makes it a long-term capital asset.

The Income Tax Act says that in case of computation of long-term capital gains, the tax payer can index the cost of acquisition of the property since the date of acquisition to the date on which it has been sold.

Indexation is done with the help of a Cost Inflation Index, which is notified every year by the tax authorities. The first year when such an index was notified was in 1981-82 at a base value of 100 and the index notified for 2016-17 is 1,125.  If an individual purchases a house for Rs 20 lakh and sells it at Rs 50 lakh, he is liable to pay capital gains tax on the profit made, which is Rs 30 lakh in the example. But the buyer can reduce this liability by using Cost Inflation Index. The longer one holds the property; the lower would be the tax outgo.

The complication

The correct method of calculating capital gains came up before the Mumbai Income Tax Tribunal, which was pronounced in July 2016. The taxpayer had declared long term capital gains on sale of property at Rs 29,02,270 after considering the indexation benefit of Rs 19,93,232.

The tax payer had become a member of a housing society in 1993 and was later allotted a flat in 1994. The housing society constructed and allotted flats to all the members. The taxpayer claimed that he had been paying proportionate cost of construction on various occasions from 1994 to 2006, as and when called upon by the society. While calculating the indexed cost of acquisition, the tax payer adopted the cost inflation index, corresponding to each year of payment.

The tax officer however held a different view. He argued that the property tax assessment bill issued by the municipal corporation showed that the said flat was assessed to property tax from January 1, 2007 and therefore the date of acquisition of the property was to be taken as January 1, 2007.

Accordingly, the tax officer’s cost indexation calculation was determined by adopting the said date, thereby increasing the tax burden on the seller. The officer calculated the taxpayer’s additional liability at Rs 4,71,074. The officer added this amount to the tax payer’s income. At the first level of appeal, the appellate authority confirmed the tax officer’s view and decided the case against the taxpayer.

Tribunal favours the taxpayer

At the Tribunal, the tax payer put forth his case that the benefit of indexation of cost should be granted to him right from 1994 when he started making payments and not from January 1, 2007 when the house was first subjected to property assessment.

The tax officer argued that a property can be said to be acquired only after its possession is handed over to the buyer, and therefore adoption of date as the one he considered is justified.

On considering the merits of the case, the tribunal observed that the society in question was allotted land by Maharashtra Housing and Development Authority or Mhada and the conveyance deed was made in favour of the society in 1994. Being a member of the society, the tax payer was allotted a flat and was issued the share certificate in 1994. It was also observed that an allotment letter for the specific flat was also issued to the tax payer in 1995.

The Tribunal was of the opinion that it is not necessary that the taxpayer must become an owner by way of conveyance deed for the purpose of computing capital gains. As the tax payer had acquired the right to obtain a specific flat in the society in 1994 itself, the indexation of the cost of acquisition of the flat has to be granted with respect to the initial date of 1994, subject to the fact that the indexation be applied to each instalment as and when the same was paid. The case, therefore, was decided in the favour of the tax payer.

Implications

The case provides an extremely useful tax planning measure for those who plan to purchase an under-construction house. They must register the property as soon as possible and become the legal owners. If they sell the property after holding it for more than three years after completion, they will get the indexation benefit even for the instalments paid.

A registered agreement provides definitive details of the property such as flat number, floor, size of the flat, etc. On the contrary, merely having allotment letter, which do not define the flat, will not be helpful. In the past taxpayers with allotment letters did not get any relief in similar cases.

The case in question had stronger facts: A society already existed and the taxpayer held share certificates. These principles should equally apply to buyers in under-construction projects who would become society members post completion.

Many individuals invest in a second house or vacation home but they either don't let it out for fear of squatting or are very choosy about the profile of tenants. Though rental yields are not high in India, income generation from rent can be crucial for your finances.

Rental yield from a property is the annual rate of return it generates when it is put out on rent. If your property is worth Rs 1 crore and you let it out for Rs 50,000 a month (which works out to be Rs 6 lakh a year) your rental yield comes to six per cent. In smaller cities rental yields hover around two-four per cent on an average but in metros such as Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi, the yields can be as high as six-seven per cent.

Owners who fear squatters should use mobile app-based services that allow giving property on rent for a day, just like it happens in hotels.

Hosting services

With the advent of rental real estate aggregators such as Airbnb and Stayzilla, renting out your unoccupied property as a service apartment or a holiday home can fetch Rs 3,000-5,000 a day. These sort of rentals can be earned by providing three-star facilities. If you have made significant value additions to your home you can even charge up to a 5-10 per cent premium over these rates.

Bear in mind that you may need several permissions before you can put your house on daily rental, especially in big cities. The society may have bye-laws that may prevent you from enrolling in such a service or may require you to seek a no-objection certificate. If you want to run a service apartment, you would also need police verification and permissions from the concerned municipal authorities.

Once your permits are in order, you will have to furnish your apartment with modern amenities. If you have a round-the-clock cook/caretaker, chauffer and provide the benefits of a swimming pool, club area and gym, you can enhance your rent and charge even Rs 7,000-10,000 a day (this is a ballpark figure assuming the apartment is in a central location in a metropolitan city).

You don't need to spend a fortune on furnishing the space. Think more about creating a functional space. Keep the house simple and uncluttered. If possible, remove personal items such as family photos, clothes from cupboards, etc. You should also avoid religious or political pieces. The goal is to make every guest feel comfortable and at home.

Listing your home on these apps is easy. They give you the freedom to decide not just the rent for each day but also the kind of guests you would like to host in your home. They even handhold property owners if they are letting out a house or vacation home for the first time. These aggregators, such as Airbnb, charge a three per cent service fee each time a reservation is completed. But they expect you to meet their standards and provide certain facilities.

The guests make up their mind based on the location, photos, amenities and ratings of other users. You have to work towards each of these to ensure you get more bookings and thereby regular income.

Pictures: Take the right pictures and take plenty of them. This means the pictures need to be bright and show the personality of your house. Highlight whatever is unique in the property while shooting. Take photos from different vantage points. Look at some of the pictures other users have put on these app-based services and use the ideas: will the house look attractive with artwork on the walls or should you put some towels right next to the bed?

Pay attention to description: Think hard about how you will describe your property. Highlight the attractive parts. Is your house centrally located? Is it bigger than properties in the vicinity? Are you offering a king-sized bed? All these things will matter. Think from a guest's point of view and while writing the description answer questions that the guest might have. Let people know about kitchen, bathroom and laundry access - travellers care about this. Get a Wi-Fi connection if you can. Be honest about everything.

Engage your guests: If you stay close to the property, engage with the guest. A personal touch will help you earn better ratings. Guests may have queries about nearby areas, distance to airport, etc. You can also give them a tour of the house and welcome them with tea or coffee.

Taxation

How your rental income will be taxed will depend on the way you choose to let out the property. For residential accommodation it is considered as income from house property. For service apartments or homestays, this income is considered as business income. Taxpayers often make the cardinal mistake of under-reporting such income and thus miss out on the opportunity of claiming deduction on it.

You must compulsorily disclose rental income and furnish your PAN details if the rental value exceeds Rs 1 lakh.

In order to get the full benefit, you as the homeowner should also check Form 26 AS to see if the app-based service provider or tenant has deducted tax at source. Going through the proper channels will ensure you are a beneficiary of the tax credits after you file returns. You can also take home insurance. But thoroughly study the conditions laid down by the insurer. Check if all features of the policy will be applicable if you let it out.

A second home is like a goose that lays golden eggs only if you have been cautious and done your homework before you put out your home on rent. Ensure that you tie up the loose ends and allocate 10 per cent of your annual rent towards maintenance and periodic improvements in your home. This will further enhance the rental value you earn from it.

- by Rajeeb Dash

(The writer is head-marketing, Tata Housing)

Source :- Business Standard