Nine realty shares fell by 0.12% to 8.62% as the interim general budget did not provide any sops to the realty sector as was expected.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, currently in charge of the finance ministry, presented the interim budget today, 16 February 2009.
At 13:35 IST the BSE Realty index was down 4.48% to 1,521.07. It underperformed the Sensex was was down 3.13% at 9,333.44.
Realty stocks had surged in the past few days on budget hopes. The BSE Realty index had risen 14.7% in past six sessions to 1592.36 on 13 February 2009 from 1388.52 on 5 February 2009.
Sobha Developers (down 0.12%), Parsvnath Developers (down 0.62%), Puravankara Projects (down 0.83%), Akruti City (down 1.05%), Omaxe (down 1.47%), DLF (down 4.23%), Housing Development & Infrastructure (down 5.08%), Unitech (down 5.81%), and Indiabulls Real Estate (down 8.62%), slumped.
The government was expected to announce some relief for the real estate and housing sector, which is crumbling under liquidity crisis and a slowdown in demand. But no such sops were announced.
The previous two stimulus package had left realtors unhappy. As a part fiscal stimulus, the government on 2 January 2009 had allowed the developers of integrated townships to borrow funds from overseas and also asked states to release land for low- and middle-income housing schemes.
The government had also asked the public sector banks to lower rates on home loans up to Rs 20 lakh. But realtors complained that the existing stock of unsold homes cost much more than Rs 20 lakh, so that the interest rate concession on loans up to Rs 20 lakh would not help their sale.
The demand in residential segment has declined in the last six months on account of high interest rates on housing loans and steep rise in property prices in the last 2-3 years.
The BSE Realty index had underperformed the market over the past one month till 13 February 2009, falling 10.33% as compared to the Sensex's 6.21% rise. It had also underperformed the market in the past one quarter, sliding 22.20% as compared to the Sensex's rise of 1.03%.