Maharashtra government's decision to cut stamp duty from 5 per cent to 2 per cent, and other levies for buying and selling of properties in urban and rural areas provided major fillip to realty counters such as Sunteck Realty, Oberoi Realty and Indiabulls Real Estate on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Thursday.

The state government has cut stamp duty rates from 5 per cent now to 2 per cent in urban areas of the state till December 31 and 3 per cent till March 31, 2021. Urban local body tax has been retained at 1 per cent. On the other hand, stamp duty rates have been cut from 4 per cent to 1 per cent in rural areas till December 31 and 2 per cent till March 31, 2021. READ MORE

"The temporary reduction in stamp duty will likely help support sales of Mumbai-centric players like Oberoi Realty, Godrej Properties and Sunteck Realty among our coverage universe. Oberoi Realty will also benefit from the completion of several of its larger projects that will eliminate the incidence of GST. We remain constructive on the listed real estate players, as we believe that the current pandemic will further aid industry consolidation as weak players struggle to survive the absence of sales in a year of heightened economic uncertainty," said analysts at Kotak Institutional Equities in a report dated August 27.

Those at JM Financial, in a sector report dated August 25, said that With discounts / schemes being offered across the market and mortgage rates at all-time low levels, any cut in stamp duty will further help attract buyers and revive the residential market (especially MMR). They remain positive on the large branded residential developers as consolidation theme gathers momentum.

Among individual stocks, Sunteck Realty zoomed 19.4 per cent to hit an intra-day high of Rs 307.7 per share on the NSE, while Oberoi Realty surged 8.3 per cent. Besides, IBREL jumped 5.5 per cent, Godrej Properties (5.3 per cent), and Sobha (3.7 per cent).

Other stocks such as Prestige Estates, Brigade Enterprises, Omaxe, DLF, and Phoenix Mills were up between 0.8 and 2.2 per cent at 9:52 am, In comparison, the Nifty50 index was at 11,599 level, up 0.43 per cent. Nifty Realty Index, meanwhile, was up 3 per cent after advancing 3.4 per cent in the intra-day trade.

That apart, housing finance companies, too, rallied in trade. HDFC gained 2.8 per cent in the early morning deals to hit a high of Rs 1,868 on the NSE. LIC Housing Finance rose 1.7 per cent, Indiabulls Housing Finance (2.6 per cent), and PNB Housing Finance (5.2 per cent). GIC Housing Finance, however, slipped around 4 per cent.

"HDFC is a compelling story in current environment given a) superior liability franchise with the largest deposit base within the NBFC space, b) best placed to benefit from lower rates and

normalization of credit spreads c) poised to maintain retail home loan market share while selectively increase market share in corporate segment especially developer finance as ~40% of the overall market (incl. banks) is either defocusing/recalibrating their strategy/reeling under capital constraints, d) ability to maintain spreads over the years despite increase in share of low yielding individual loans over the last two years and e) best in class asset quality in a challenging environment with possible monetisation of investments providing adequate cushion against asset quality shocks," said JM Financials in a report dated August 21.