It can also determine the best price to bid for the land.
In pricing or buying real estate, developers often make decisions based on the combination of data they can access through agencies such as Urban Development Authority (URA) and a great deal of gut instinct, Savills Southeast Asia CEO Christopher Marriott said. This practice has barred developers from getting the most out of their projects.
To help property developers increase sales, Real Estate Analytics, Savills, and LanciaConsult joined forces to deliver a tool that can provide answers to queries regarding residential development like how much a unit should be sold for, and what price should be bid for a certain piece of land.
The tool, called REA Developer Suite, does not only guide developers in residential pricing, but also the building process. It helps developers identify what type and what sizes of bedrooms should be built.
The developer suite can come up with answers to such questions through the use of real-time data provided by Singapore’s largest real estate agents stored in a platform called SoRealProp.
SoRealProp was established by PropNex, ERA, and Huttons, which together transact around 80% of all deals in Singapore. The platform was then acquired by Real Estate Analytics.
“The data lake is very extensive, it provides us real-time transactions that allow us to create [a] demand curve for any specific project. We can estimate how many people would want to buy a flat price at a specific amount of time,” REA Analytics CEO, Jean-Michel Paul, told Singapore Business Review.
Marriott added that the data being put into the data lake is “the freshest that you can get from the marketplace.”
“Once a deal is inked between the buyer and the seller, or the landlord and the tenant, that data is immediately put into the live database. So it’s within 12 to 24 hours of a transaction being executed,” he explained.
Bottomline, Marriott said the suite “takes out a lot of the guesswork” that goes with developing residential projects.
“Developers use the static data that are available from the government currently to analyse the market and a great deal of gut feel being the experts in buying land and developing those properties, and ultimately selling it to the end user,” Marriott said.
“[The developer suite] gives specific data and specific answers on what is the best price to pay for a piece of land. What is the best design of that land once purchased and then finally, what is the best price to sell the developed units? So the real three questions that the developer suite answers,” he said.
Paul said the margins of developers are less than 10% and by providing them answers as to what can optimise their sales through the suite, this margin can go up by 10% to 20%.
The developer suite not only benefits developers, but also banks that are funding these developers, said Marriott.
Jeff Cronkshaw, CEO of LanciaConsult, said their clients find the solution “very interesting.” As a partner of REA, LanciaConsult provides the “go-to-market and engagement with sectors.”
“Our team is working with the clients and helping them understand how best to use these products from a consulting perspective. It’s very much a solution-based conversation with those developers and the finance sectors,” Cronkshaw said.
“We’re always seeking to provide the best, most novice, most practical solution for our clients and [the REA Developer Suite] is exactly that. For us, it’s great to be able to go into a client meeting or conversation with a partner and bring this partnership and this product to them,” he added.
Looking ahead, Paul said he hopes to make the developer suite available for commercial and mixed-use projects. Currently, the tool is only available for residential developers.
“We’ve already had requests from the commercial arena, private equity, and investment funds, who have started to ask us whether we can deliver the same sort of service in the industrial and logistics, commercial and retail market, ” Marriott added.
Paul said they also plan to expand the service “geographically.”
“This was born in Singapore and tested in Singapore, but we have had demands from several Asian countries already, so this is going to enable exponential growth,” Paul said.
Some of the biggest price appreciation in metro Atlanta has occurred along or south of I-20, historically a racial dividing line in the region.
Majority Black Clayton County saw the highest home price appreciation from January 2020 to last December, up 71% in that time. Three other majority Black counties followed — Rockdale (69%), Douglas (68%) and Henry (64%).
Homeownership has been a top source of middle-class wealth building for generations. Nearly three-quarters of white households in the U.S. own their own homes, compared to less than half (45.2%) of Black households, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
A landmark study from Georgia Tech found that the rise in investor activity caused a 1.4 percentage point drop in homeownership rates in metro Atlanta from 2007 to 2016. Black homeownership dropped 4.2 percentage points during that period, the research found, while homeownership among white people was unaffected.
In metro Atlanta, about 53% of Black households own their own home, up slightly since 2016 and a little better than the national average. But about 79% of white Atlanta area households own their own homes.
Institutional investors also are far more likely to own homes today in the neighborhoods hardest hit more than a decade ago by crisis-era foreclosures, which affected communities of color the hardest, the AJC analysis shows.
Wall Street scooped up thousands of lots and foreclosed homes in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Their purchases stabilized economically distressed neighborhoods, industry proponents say. But firms often flipped those houses to other investors as the economy rebounded.
Now Wall Street is back with a new business model — one that experts say inflates home values and rents.
“I think it has worsened the housing inequality in the region,” said Dan Immergluck, a professor of urban studies at Georgia State University.
The trend worries Maureen Webb, who fears the homebuying window is closing for younger generations. The 74-year-old retired nurse crawled her way back to homeownership after a foreclosure. Webb rented until she was able to buy a McDonough townhome in 2020 for $188,000. She recently sold the home at nearly a $100,000 profit. Large investors own 21% of all homes in her census tract, the sixth-highest in the metro area.
Webb said she doesn’t know if she’d be able to afford the last place she rented, let alone buy a house, if she was a young nurse today.
“I’m sure if I was still there, I couldn’t afford it,” she said.
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Maureen Webb fears the homebuying window is closing for younger generations. The 74-year-old retired nurse crawled her way back to homeownership after a foreclosure. Webb rented until she was able to buy a McDonough townhome in 2020 for $188,000. She recently sold the home at nearly a $100,000 profit. Large investors own 21% of all homes in her census tract, the sixth-highest in the metro area. (Natrice Miller/natrice.miller@ajc.com)
Dividing lines
Memorial Drive is a dividing line in DeKalb County between wealthier and whiter northern DeKalb and southern DeKalb, which tends to be lower income and majority Black.
More than half of all homes sold in 2021 south of Memorial Drive in DeKalb were to private equity firms, according to an Emory University study.
Lorraine Cochran-Johnson, a DeKalb commissioner, said the county’s racial divide is the result of decades of housing policy, dating back to the days of redlining — a discriminatory practice where mortgage lenders and banks denied Black Americans access to home loans and dictated where they could live. She said the deluge of investor activity has a similar effect.
“Whether or not it is an intentional redlining that’s occurring, it is disproportionately affecting Black and brown communities,” she said. “There’s just no denying it.”
Thirty-five years ago, a groundbreaking AJC investigation, called The Color of Money, found white people in metro Atlanta were five times more likely to receive home loans from mainstream financial institutions as Blacks of the same income. In that 1988 investigation, the AJC found that traditional banks rarely lent in majority Black neighborhoods in Fulton and DeKalb counties, and that race — and not factors like home values or household incomes — consistently determined the lending patterns of the largest banks and mortgage lenders. The investigation led to federal home lending reforms designed to reduce discrimination.
Today, Wall Street is often deploying its capital in minority neighborhoods — just not always to open the doors of homeownership to more people.
Part of the equation is likely simple economics. Wall Street investors target areas where they can buy houses on the cheap and earn higher profits renting them or flipping them than they can in more expensive areas. But homes in many of these lower-cost areas started out cheaper, at least in part, because of the legacy of discriminatory practices in home buying and lending, experts say.
The National Rental Home Council, which represents the largest U.S. rental home companies, denies its members’ buying practices are racially biased or targeted.
“The activity of our member companies has zero to do with the race or ethnicity of individuals in communities where they buy products,” said David Howard, the organization’s executive director.
Home prices are increasing across DeKalb but the fastest appreciation is south of Memorial Drive.
Nine DeKalb zip codes saw home values increase by more than 40% from January 2021 to November 2022, and all but one were south of Memorial Drive or were bisected by the thoroughfare, according to Zillow.
“Whether or not it is an intentional redlining that’s occurring, it is disproportionately affecting Black and brown communities. There’s just no denying it.”
– Lorraine Cochran-Johnson, a DeKalb commissioner
One of the starkest divides is on display between 30032, south of Memorial Drive, and 30033, to the north.
The 30032 zip code, which is three-quarters Black, has household incomes that are about half those of 30033, which is only 14% Black. Median home values in 30032 are about $170,000, less than half those in 30033.
Wall Street has taken notice, acquiring nearly 8% of homes in the 30032 zip code in recent years, compared to just 0.2% in 30033, the AJC found.
‘You just couldn’t compete’
Few places are feeling the investor rush more than in Henry County.
In the 20 census tracts where Wall Street has bought the highest percentage of homes, 15 — or 75% — are majority-minority neighborhoods. Eleven of those tracts are in Henry.
Henry is the second-fastest-growing county in metro Atlanta and in recent years has become a magnet for warehousing and distribution facilities for some of the nation’s biggest brands, including Home Depot, Wayfair and mattress-maker Purple.
Parts of Henry also have seen some of the largest rent increases in the nation. Stockbridge had the second-biggest increase in the U.S. during 2020, a 13.8% rise in monthly rent from $1,306 to $1,412, according to insurance research firm AdvisorSmith.
Carlotta Harrell, the chair of the Henry County Commission, has found herself on both sides of the institutional investor issue.
She listed her home for sale in 2021 and received a flood of offers from investors willing to pay cash for her house, but she turned them down.
“I refused to sell it to an investor. I sold it to a family,” she said.
Eric and Oriana Wyche, seen last month at their Jonesboro home, had to compete with investors in their search. Oriana said with every rejected bid, she got a similar answer. “A lot of them told me it went to an investor who could close sooner, who could put more money down,” she said. “You just couldn’t compete.” (Miguel Martinez / miguel.martinezjimenez@ajc.com)
Oriana Wyche, who bought Harrell’s house, said she was trying for months to find a larger home for her growing household of five. She placed 11 bids during her search.
Wyche, a real estate broker for 18 years, knows the ins and outs of the market. She said she never expected to have such a hard time finding a house. But with every rejected bid, she got a similar answer.
“A lot of them told me it went to an investor who could close sooner, who could put more money down,” she said. “You just couldn’t compete.”
After Harrell sold her house to downsize, she found herself competing with the same investors she denied. It took months, and 16 bids, for her to find her current three-bedroom, ranch-style home in McDonough.
Housing investors became a hot topic in Stockbridge in 2021 when a developer didn’t disclose a new 75-home community would be sold to American Homes 4 Rent, a California-based investor that owns more than 1,000 properties in metro Atlanta and has since rebranded as AMH. It prompted outrage and a moratorium on single-family homes until the city could implement a rental cap.
In a statement, AMH said it was not aware the developer told the city it would be a for-sale project, adding it abided by the city’s laws.
“Majority-minority areas have certainly been sought out and preyed upon, so you get to a point where you need to have the zoning and codes in place yesterday,” said Elton Alexander, a Stockbridge councilman. “It’s almost impossible to put something in place to correct it.”
During the first week of 2023, Henry County imposed a one-year moratorium on applications to build new apartments, townhomes and duplexes to better plan for the growth, officials said.
But moratoriums also slow delivery of new housing, which can make affordability worse. Investors are quick to criticize governments for imposing restrictions, saying there’s demand from people who prefer to rent.
“These actions are not only counterproductive to local economies, but they attempt to segregate people based on how they choose to live,” AMH said in a statement.
Valerie Brown, a Henry real estate agent, said she used to recommend clients avoid buying in neighborhoods with lots of rentals, but that’s become impossible.
“Now, if I recommend that to my clients, they would be on the streets,” she said. “There wouldn’t be any place to live.”
-John Perry, technical director of the AJC’s data journalism team, contributed to this article.
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Valerie Brown, a Henry real estate agent, said she used to recommend clients avoid buying in neighborhoods with lots of rentals, but that’s become impossible. (Natrice Miller/natrice.miller@ajc.com)
Ray White/Supplied
This property on Happy Valley Rd in Wellington is selling for $400,000 under its CV.
First time buyers on the lookout for a bargain couldn’t do much better than this little 1920s bungalow in Ōwhiro Bay, Wellington.
The three bedroom home’s RV calculation in September 2021 was $1.03 million, which estate agent David Bradford describes as “ridiculous” in the listing. But the owner is only seeking offers over a more achievable $600,000.
“You have to be realistic because the council always puts the rateable value very high,” says owner Jasmine Lee.
“I sold a place in Newtown with a rateable value of over a million dollars, but it only sold for 600,000. When I looked at this place, I said ‘hey, let’s get somebody who’s a first time buyer and we’ll do it up nicely for them as a family.”
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The house at Ōwhiro Bay was bought about 20 years ago by Lee’s late husband, who was a property investor. The couple owned several properties around town – the house next door is also Lee’s. When he died last year, she decided she would sell some of the portfolio and live a simpler life.
Ray White/Supplied
The living/dining space is open plan.
“If you start thinking in terms of the property market being down about 19 to 30%, realistically, you have to really say, ‘OK, let somebody else have this place, which would help them heaps’,” says Lee, who will be fixing up and selling the home next door, once 83 Happy Valley Rd is sold.
She and her partner are doing work to refresh the properties themselves. When Stuff called, Lee had been painting and preparing for the open house this weekend. That’s another reason she’s decided to get out of the landlord game herself.
“My husband was an electrician and very handy. But my partner, he’s very handy, but he doesn’t like doing it.”
Ray White/Supplied
The home still has 1920s-built panelled doors.
83 Happy Valley Rd is a classic 90m² 1920s bungalow, with exposed eves, and panelled internal doors that are original. Inside has a fresh, modern feel, with off-white walls and neutral carpet throughout. The bathroom and kitchen are simple and functional, and could do with some upgrading by the buyer in the future.
The real selling point of the property, however, is the section, which is 817m².
“We initially bought [these two properties], because they’ve got huge land at the back. We thought we would knock it down and possibly develop it. But then my husband passed away.
“It’s time to retire. I’m 61, my partner is 67. It’s best for us to wind down now. You don’t know when you’re going to go. My husband died so suddenly, just like that.”
Lee hopes the home will be bought by a young family, or first time buyers who will make the most of it.
There is a possibility that a buyer could remove the home from the hilly section and build something bigger and more modern. The property backs onto Te Kopahau Reserve, so it has neighbours only on two sides, but there could be room to subdivide the section, or extend the home up the hill.
Ray White/Supplied
The home has three bedrooms along one side of the home.
Another selling point is its proximity to the south coast: Ōwhiro Bay beach is just a seven-minute walk away. Red Rocks, with its seal and penguin colonies, is just 14 minutes away by bike. Also nearby is the Ōwhiro Bay community garden with its eel stream (and occasional seal visitor).
The home is on the main bus route from the coast into the city, and it’s a 52-minute commute into the CBD.
The property is for sale by deadline, seeking offers over $600,000, which closes at 3pm on February 23. The listing is with David Bradford for Ray White Wellington.
Homes.co.nz estimate the home to sell between $770,000 and $840,000, which is still under the average sale price of $900,000 for the area.
Ray White/Supplied
The back of the section is mostly over grown bush. But it could be tamed and put to use, or built on.
AARON WOOD/STUFF
It can be tough to get your finances ready to impress the bank manager – here are some things that can help.
Top-seeded Caldwell met second-seeded Governor Livingston in the NJSIAA/Rothman Orthopaedics North 2, Group 2 wrestling final on Wednesday night.
Check out pictures from the match.
Our high school sports photos like the ones below put you right up close with the action and the whole experience. Check them out by clicking anywhere in the collage below to open the photo gallery. Don’t forget to share the gallery with friends and relatives.
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Upstart Sparta took on top-seeded Old Tappan on Wednesday in the NJSIAA/Rothman Orthopaedics North 1, Group 3 final on Wednesday.
See pictures from the match that determined the sectional champion.
Our high school sports photos like the ones below put you right up close with the action and the whole experience. Check them out by clicking anywhere in the collage below to open the photo gallery. Don’t forget to share the gallery with friends and relatives.
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NOTE: Because we are trying to make these galleries available for viewing as quickly as possible, the gallery may not be in its final form. If you only see a few photos, you are probably seeing an early version and more photos will be added later. Please return and refresh the page to see additions
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The Marysville City Council on Tuesday night took another major step in the redevelopment of its B Street property that has more or less laid dormant for a number of years, in part due to past council and city decisions.
The 5-acre property, located between 12th and 14th streets in Marysville, has been identified as a prime location by officials for development because of its proximity to Bryant Field and the fact it is along one of the major corridors of the city.
Our high school sports photos like the ones below put you right up close with the action and the whole experience. Check them out by clicking anywhere in the collage below to open the photo gallery. Don’t forget to share the gallery with friends and relatives.
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When you were young, chances are you dreamed of owning a large home with all the bells and whistles. But as life marches on, it’s not unusual to have more modest goals, including visions of a smaller home that better suits your needs.
You may decide to downsize before retirement. Or, maybe you are just looking for a simpler lifestyle. Parents often find there’s less need to maintain large homes after their children grow up and move away.
Choosing a smaller dwelling can reduce housing costs and eliminate many maintenance tasks, such as painting, cleaning and mowing. Fewer rooms make housekeeping an easier task. A smaller home also offers other hidden advantages.
Following are some unexpected benefits of downsizing your home in retirement.
1. It can become easier to relocate
Selling a home can be a hassle. You need to find a real estate agent, show the home to potential buyers and negotiate a price. If there’s a decline in the real estate market, you may not be able to sell the dwelling for full value — or to sell it at all.
If you downsize by selling your home and living in a rental unit, those problems go away once you become a renter. Renters can live anyplace they like and sample life in different communities. And once your lease is up — and sometimes even before — you are free to move on.
To learn more about renting, see “7 Reasons You Should Rent a Home in Retirement.”
2. You can get organized
When you move into a smaller home, it forces you to eliminate clutter, says Marty Stevens-Heebner, a professional organizer in Southern California.
Retirees who remain in large homes often end up using only a few rooms, such as their bedroom, kitchen and living room, Stevens-Heebner tells Money Talks News.
“The other areas usually wind up collecting clutter because maintaining so much space is too difficult and takes up a lot of time that could be spent doing something more enjoyable,” she says.
3. You can eliminate stress
Paring possessions when you downsize will increase enjoyment of your home and reduce stress, says Liliane Choney, executive director and cofounder of ReVisions Resources, a nonprofit group that provides resources and information about successful aging. Getting rid of unneeded furniture, unused exercise machines and outdated electronics gives you additional living space.
“The clutter is not good for comfortable living,” Choney tells Money Talks News. “Things are in the way. You can’t find things. Having things organized simplifies your life.”
4. A smaller home might be more accessible
As people age, they often find it difficult to climb stairs. If they live on two levels, they may begin to see stairs as barriers that prevent them from enjoying the full use of their home.
Stairs also increase the risks of falls and injuries, says Choney. A home that may have suited you perfectly well 20 years ago can become challenging as time passes.
If you have mobility problems, downsizing will give you the opportunity to choose a home with greater accessibility. That means you’ll be able to live in your home longer, aging in place rather than moving to an assisted-living facility.
5. You might drive less often
Many people who live in suburban communities feel isolated in retirement, says Choney. Moving to an apartment or condominium in an urban setting can bring you closer to shopping opportunities, restaurants and entertainment venues.
That means there will be less need for driving. Many places will be within walking distance. Others will be accessible through public transit. If you decide to work in retirement, you’ll be closer to employment opportunities.
6. You eliminate work for your children
When elderly people die or move into assisted-living communities, their children often have the difficult task of sorting through possessions, and giving some items away or putting them in storage.
“Paring down your possessions is not only better for you, but it will also wind up being a gift to your children, who won’t have to sort through it all in later years,” says Stevens-Heebner.
Deborah Heiser, a New York psychologist who specializes in aging issues, tells Money Talks News that many parents keep sentimental possessions — such as heirlooms, artwork and jewelry — because they believe their children will want them one day. However, in many cases their kids don’t want any of the items they have saved.
7. You gain more time for yourself
With fewer rooms and smaller spaces, you’ll spend less time cleaning and maintaining your downsized home. That means you’ll be able to spend more time on hobbies, recreation, travel or just plain resting.
“When there are fewer things left in your home after downsizing, that means there are far fewer things that require constant cleaning and maintenance,” says Stevens-Heebner.
Rockefeller Group sold the recently completed, 345,600-square-foot Rockefeller Group Logistics Center Eastampton, located on Route 206 in Burlington County.
According to a Feb. 8 announcement from the New York-based developer, owner and operator, Glendale Warehouse and Distribution Corp. purchased the 27.64-acre property for $83 million.
Rockefeller Group said it acquired the property in 2021.
According to the firm, the new owner will use the space – located approximately 8 miles from Exit 7 of the New Jersey Turnpike – for the distribution of spices and other food grade products. Glendale will employ approximately 30 workers at the facility, many who will move from the company’s Middlesex County locations.
“Rockefeller Group is pleased to complete and sell our industrial distribution center in Eastampton, which drew significant interest from both local and national users during the construction of the core and shell,” said Zac Csik, vice president, Rockefeller Group NJ/PA Development, in a statement. “It was a pleasure working with Glendale, a user-buyer who was excited to be purchasing a new, Class A distribution center in one of New Jersey’s fastest growing industrial markets – Burlington County.”
At the end of 2022, Burlington County posted a 4.1% vacancy rate, according to JLL’s Fourth Quarter Industrial Insights report. Statewide, low vacancies have prompted some of the highest levels of activity in the sector ever when it comes to construction. With 28.7 million square feet actively under development, according to the report, approximately 7 million square feet of that total is at work in Burlington County.
The buyer and seller worked closely to complete the building in a way that would meet the strict food safety requirements and operational needs of the Edison-based distributor.
Rockefeller Group Logistics Center Eastampton. – ROCKEFELLER GROUP
The property includes:
- 96 trailer spaces
- 384 automobile parking spaces
- 185-foot truck court with a 60-foot apron
- 54 dock doors
- two drive-in doors
- 36-foot clear heights
- 4,000 square feet of speculative office space
- 3,000 amps of power and LED lighting
“Glendale is excited to be moving into our new, state-of-the art distribution center in Eastampton as we continue to expand our business in New Jersey,” said Glendale President Frank Collette in a statement. “With this new facility, developed by a terrific partner in Rockefeller Group, we are consolidating operations from multiple buildings in Edison to this larger building and will be able to better serve our customers and utilize multiple ports of entry for our imported products.”
According to the company’s website, it currently has four locations in Edison and one in East Brunswick.
Cushman and Wakefield Executive Vice Chair Chuck Fern represented the buyer and the CBRE team of Vice Chairman Tom Monahan, Associate Gerard Monahan, Executive Vice President Stephen D’Amato, Executive Vice President Larry Schiffenhaus, Client Services Specialist Lauren Hageman and Client Services Team Lead Ana Lazarides served as the exclusive agent for the seller.
Blue Rock Construction was the general contractor, Menlo Engineering was the civil engineer and KSS Architects designed the building, Rockefeller Group said.
The budget had some terrible news for taxpayers servicing home loans. Until now, they could get tax benefit on the interest portion of the loan twice. First, by claiming deduction up to ₹2 lakh (for self-occupied property) every year under section 24 (available only under the old tax regime). Second, after selling off the property, they were allowed to add the interest part of the loan to the total cost of acquisition (purchase price) that is used to arrive at the capital gains.
The budget had some terrible news for taxpayers servicing home loans. Until now, they could get tax benefit on the interest portion of the loan twice. First, by claiming deduction up to ₹2 lakh (for self-occupied property) every year under section 24 (available only under the old tax regime). Second, after selling off the property, they were allowed to add the interest part of the loan to the total cost of acquisition (purchase price) that is used to arrive at the capital gains.
The budget has inserted an either-or condition to this, starting with assessment year (AY) 2024-25. To be sure, the IT laws did not have a provision allowing taxpayers to avail double tax benefit on home loan interest. It was a loophole that taxpayers were taking advantage of.
The budget has inserted an either-or condition to this, starting with assessment year (AY) 2024-25. To be sure, the IT laws did not have a provision allowing taxpayers to avail double tax benefit on home loan interest. It was a loophole that taxpayers were taking advantage of.
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For properties sold after 31 March, sellers cannot include the interest portion of the home loan in cost of acquisition while calculating capital gains if they have already claimed deduction on it. Adding the interest amount increases the cost of acquisition and thereby reduces the tax on capital gains. This essentially means that the taxpayer were getting double tax benefit on the same interest amount.
The question that arises now is whether homeowners should claim deduction every year or forego it to use the interest amount later to lower the capital gains tax?
A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that choosing the latter is more beneficial. Long-term capital gains (LTCG) made on a house property enjoy indexation, which means the interest amount will also increase to adjust for inflation during the holding period and considerably bring down the tax on capital gains.
A word of caution here though. “The assumption here is that when the homebuyer sells the property in the future, current tax rules would not have changed by then. The probability of that happening is low, especially when the government is moving towards a simpler tax system that may see a lot of changes in the income tax rules over the next few years,” said Jigar Mansatta, a Jamnagar-based chartered accountant.
“I will suggest that taxpayers claim deduction under section 24 while it is available,” he added.
Since the deduction is limited to ₹2 lakh (for self-occupied property), interest in excess of this threshold can be included in the cost of acquisition at the time of selling the property. For properties let out on rent, full interest is deductible under section 24.
Though this change will be applicable from 1 April, it is advised that taxpayers who sell a property in FY2022-23 do not include interest component in the cost of acquisition while filing their tax return if they have claimed deductions on it. “In case of a dispute, the court will consider the rule announced by the government even if it is not in effect at the time of filing income tax return (ITR),” said Mansatta.