Real Estate Budget 2024: Govt to launch housing scheme for the middle class

The government will launch a housing scheme for middle class to buy or build their own houses, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her Budget 2024 speech on February 1.
“Our Government will launch a scheme to help deserving sections of the middle class ‘living in rented houses, or slums, or chawls and unauthorized colonies’ to buy or build their own houses,” the FM said in her interim budget speech.
On the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Rural), she said the government is close to achieving construction of 3 crore houses in India’s rural areas and the government will support construction of 2 crore more houses in the next five years under PMAY (Rural).
“Despite the challenges due to COVID, implementation of PM Awas Yojana (Grameen) continued and we are close to achieving the target of three crore houses. Two crore more houses will be taken up in the next five years to meet the requirement arising from increase in the number of families,” she said.
PMAY-G aims to provide a pucca house with basic amenities to all homeless households and those living in kutcha and dilapidated house in rural areas.
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Real estate experts welcome the Budget 2024 announcement” ₹2 crore more housing units in the next five years under the PM Awas Yojana. New housing scheme for the middle class is expected for people living in rented/chawls/unauthorised areas on rent to build/buy their own house. These initiatives should significantly help in plugging the overall housing shortage faced by the country,” said Ravi Shankar Singh, Managing Director, Residential Transaction Services at Colliers India.
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Boman Irani, president CREDAI National, said that the housing scheme will help deserving sections of the middle class to buy or build their own houses and that is encouraging and will aid in the growth of the housing market.
“The intention to complete 2 crore housing units in the next five years will aid the ‘Housing for All’ mission of the government. Additionally, the proposed boost to housing for middle-class living in sub-par accommodation is also a welcome inclusion. We look forward to the details of this as we expect this to have great long-term ramifications,” said Shishir Baijal, Chairman and Managing Director, Knight Frank India.
“The announcement on a housing scheme for the middle-income group and the construction of 20 million homes in rural areas is positive news for the real estate and allied sectors while spurring the Housing for All agenda even further,” said Samantak Das, Chief Economist and Head of Research & REIS, India, JLL.
This should also provide an impetus to the ancillary sectors such as cement, steel, said Gaurav Karnik, Partner, EY India.
Construction of an additional 2 crore houses under the PMAY (Grameen) over the next 5 years and, the proposed launch of an housing scheme to middle class would boost demand for affordable housing units. “This augurs well for housing finance companies, who have been a key driver of credit to these segments in the recent past. While liquidity at this juncture looks tight, a lower GOI borrowing programme in the next fiscal could temper the funding cost increase of these lenders, ”added A M Karthik, senior vice president and co-group head, Financial Sector Ratings, ICRA Ltd.