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Thursday, July 24, 2025

'Real estate needs budget incentives'

by

Peter Christopher
314 days ago
20240914
President of the Association of Real Estate Agents, Sally Singh

President of the Association of Real Estate Agents, Sally Singh

PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior mul­ti­me­dia re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Ahead of the up­com­ing bud­get, The As­so­ci­a­tion of Re­al Es­tate Agents (AREA) has called for greater tax in­cen­tives in or­der to aid with the buy­inh and sell­ing of hous­es in T&T.

"One way to stim­u­late re­al es­tate trans­ac­tions and prop­er­ty im­prove­ments would be through greater tax in­cen­tives, such as en­hanced tax cred­its or de­duc­tions for prop­er­ty pur­chas­es, ren­o­va­tions, or in­vest­ments," said AREA Pres­i­dent Sal­ly Singh.

"While in re­cent years there have been more move­ments to­wards af­ford­able hous­ing, these ini­tia­tives are in­suf­fi­cient and this bud­get should seek to im­ple­ment and ex­pand the de­vel­op­ment of more rea­son­ably priced hous­ing.  This would sure­ly in­crease the sup­ply of homes for low­er-in­come fam­i­lies and ad­dress hous­ing short­ages, while boost­ing over­all mar­ket ac­tiv­i­ty.  Al­ter­na­tive­ly, gov­ern­ment should pro­vide much need­ed tax in­cen­tives to stim­u­late the com­mer­cial re­al es­tate sec­tor which cur­rent­ly lacks vi­bran­cy," said Singh.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the as­so­ci­a­tion called for greater as­sis­tance pro­grammes for po­ten­tial buy­ers who may not be able to se­cure full mort­gages.

"Where 100 per cent mort­gages are not avail­able, there should be down­pay­ment as­sis­tance pro­grammes to en­cour­age more buy­ers by pro­vid­ing grants or loans to cov­er down­pay­ments which would help first-time buy­ers and low­er-in­come in­di­vid­u­als af­ford homes.  Al­so, to en­cour­age in­vest­ments there should be spe­cial mort­gage rates for buy­ers ac­quir­ing apart­ment build­ings.  These ini­tia­tives can as­sist in in­creas­ing over­all mar­ket ac­tiv­i­ty," said Singh.

Singh al­so agreed with Ter­ra Caribbean CEO Jean Paul de Meil­lac, who called for an ad­just­ment in the Stamp Du­ty Tax, in an in­ter­view in the last Busi­ness Guardian.

She said, "There should be an ad­just­ment in the ex­ist­ing stamp du­ty tax­a­tion tier to as­sist pur­chasers. Cur­rent­ly res­i­den­tial hous­ing prop­er­ties are ex­empt­ed from tax­es when pur­chas­ing a home at $850,000 or un­der. In this cur­rent mar­ket it is very dif­fi­cult to buy a move-in ready house in a de­sired area at that price or even un­der $1.2m. By ad­just­ing the stamp du­ty tax­a­tion scale to a more re­al­is­tic tier, this will en­cour­age buy­ers with low­er up­front fund­ing, thus mak­ing it more at­trac­tive for buy­ers and po­ten­tial­ly in­creas­ing trans­ac­tion vol­umes."

AREA al­so ex­plained that  for­eign in­vest­ment in­cen­tives would be key to pro­mot­ing re­al es­tate in T&T.

"While there are some mea­sures in place, they can­not com­pare with those of the re­gion where FDI is vi­brant. AREA strong­ly be­lieves that the land li­cence ap­plied to To­ba­go on­ly, un­der the Le­gal No­tice of 2007, must be re­moved as it is an enor­mous de­ter­rent to in­vest­ment and a dis­ad­van­tage to To­ba­go. Re­duc­ing bar­ri­ers and of­fer­ing in­cen­tives for for­eign in­vestors will cer­tain­ly im­prove the in­vest­ment en­vi­ron­ment and at­tract in­ter­na­tion­al cap­i­tal in­to the lo­cal re­al es­tate mar­ket," said Singh.

She said prop­er­ty tax im­ple­men­ta­tion, if done cor­rect­ly, could al­so help the lo­cal mar­ket. 

The AREA pres­i­dent said, "Greater in­fra­struc­ture in­vest­ment is crit­i­cal to di­ver­si­fy de­vel­op­ment through­out the coun­try and make it more af­ford­able for po­ten­tial pur­chasers. With the im­ple­men­ta­tion of prop­er­ty tax this year, we hope that there will be a more eq­ui­table lev­el of de­vel­op­ment when re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions are able to pro­vide im­proved in­fra­struc­ture through the tax­es col­lect­ed in their area. In­vest­ing in in­fra­struc­tur­al projects such as roads, pub­lic trans­porta­tion, and the full range of util­i­ties can of­fer more rea­son­ably priced prop­er­ties, en­hance prop­er­ty val­ues and make cer­tain ar­eas more de­sir­able, en­cour­ag­ing both res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial re­al es­tate de­vel­op­ment."


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