Black Money In Housing Deals Down By 80%

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If you've been in residential sales long enough, you must have met a home buyer/investor who turned up with a sack full of cash to book an apartment.

The developer then was happy too to receive a major chunk of the home's value in cash - cold, unmarked and absolutely tax free at both ends. 

Turns out, demonetisation has almost brought an end to that black era. 

An 80% Shade Of White

Per Anarock, the carefree use of black money in Indian housing deals has reduced by at least 75-80% since November 2016 when the government demonetised the bulk of the country's currency. 

In fact, demonetisation has changed the very basics of why and how residential real estate is bought and sold in India. 

Today, home sales happen because of actual demand for housing, not as a means to wash black money to more acceptable shades of white. 

The Demand Supply Story Has Reversed

Per the same report, between 2013 till demonetisation in 2016, the top 7 cities saw a launch of nearly 1.615 million new homes, while home sales in this period stood at about 1.178 million homes..

However, from the time of demonetisation till Q3, 2021, the same cities saw cumulative new launches of approx. 904,000 new homes while home sales stood at around 1.037 million homes.

🎙 Anuj Puri, Chairman of Anarock told the press, "One major driving factor behind this is that branded, listed players - who now attract a significant majority of housing demand to their projects - play by the book and avoid unaccounted monies in their transactions."

Now to hope and pray for white all the way.