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."