Poor response: MHADA extends lottery deadline
Noticing a lack of response for this year’s Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) lottery, the authority has decided to give a two-day extension for both registration as well as accepting of applications. Accordingly, the final date of registrations will be pushed to October 23 and applications would be accepted till October 27.
Till now, for a lottery of 819 homes, MHADA has received nearly 50,088 registrations around 47, 648 applications but only 25,695 have paid the Earnest Money Deposit so far. Last year, for 910 homes, MHADA had received two lakh registrations, of which finally 1.35 lakh participated in the lottery by depositing the EMD.
Confirming the lack of response, a senior MHADA official, requesting anonomity, cited that the lowest number of Economic Weaker Section houses, and the timing of the lottery can be the reason behind the less number of applications and registrations. He said, “The number of EWS houses can be cited as a reason for the lack of response. Also, the lottery has been much delayed this year compared to previous years.”
Experts said that the authority should not compete with private developers by offering houses at market rates. Sanjay Chaturvedi, real estate expert and a property lawyer, said, “If the authority is willing to compete with private developers in the market, it should offer other amenities in their project similar to the private projects. The lottery has come at a time when the real estate market is already down. Post demonetisation and roll out of Goods and Services Tax, homebuyers are willing to invest in other things than buying a lottery. Also, the total number of houses in the EWS section is just eight because of which a lot of buyers are rethinking to invest in the lottery.”
In addition to this, the authority has offered the most expensive flats at a prime location in Lower Parel.
The authority is offering two flats at Rs 1.95 crore for Higher Income Group.
The Free Press Journal had revealed that the authority had received these houses for free in a form of housing stock from a realty project.