Though officially black money was the main reason cited by the indian government for demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, in reality only a small percentage of black money is held in the form of currency notes. Most of the black money is invested in the form of gold, jewelry, real estate and foreign assets, only a small percentage is kept in the form of currency. While the value of a currency remains constant, the value of a property can be easily manipulated by the owner, seller and buyer of the property, for inflating or reducing the profit and taxes to be paid
Usually the value of any property will depend on the country where it is located , and in wealthy countries the property prices will be higher. However though India is one of the poorest countries in the world with relatively poor infrastructure and lower cost of living , the real estate rates are some of the highest in the world because real estate is the preferred asset for indians for investing their black money. Often property owners in india are targetted for defamation, harassment, exploitation without a legally valid reason by indian intelligence and security agencies who wish to force the property owner to sell the property to them cheaply
Many of the most powerful intelligence and security agency officials are investing most of their illgotten money in real estate and it is mainly benami property which is never detected.