Anuj Puri, Chairman – ANAROCK Property Consultants
2017 was quite an eventful year for the Indian economy at large, and the real estate sector got more than its usual share of the limelight.
A series of reforms and structural changes tore into the very heart of the industry, affecting a surgical strike at market opacity, unaccounted funds transactions and customer victimization.
The entire real estate fraternity had to re-orient their businesses to sustain in the changing environment.
Already, the real estate sector has shed a massive part of its unorganized and fragmented nature, and the ways and means of doing business in changed for good in 2017.
The incumbent Government maintained a laser focus on changing the fabric of the Indian economy, with direct implications on the real estate industry, by implementing highly impactful reforms:
- Cracking down on black money transactions with demonetization
- Setting up RERA – a regulator to increase financial discipline, improve transparency and empower property buyers
- Introducing GST to boost transparency in taxes and improve business efficiency
- Curbing anonymous property transactions and ownership by incisive amendments to the Benami Properties Act
Simultaneously,