living in a metro ....

last week i visited a property exhibition in thane. the rates are giving tough competition to the skyscrapers. rates have increased by more than twofold in the past 2-3 yrs. although everybody knows that this is pretty much inflated price (especially in exhbitions and all) but people are still buying it. and the scary part is the minimum area is 2 bhk. although they claim that to be 2 bhk the actual carpet area comes close to 1 bhk in an old construction, as there is minimum of 25-35% of loading. so basically you end up paying that much extra. i understand that most of the projects which were put up in the exhbition were from some of the good quality constructions but still there is no way the rates can be justified.

frankly speaking there is not much of a difference in the buying capacity over the period of time. only the numbers are high. so if the income levels have gone up by X times, so have the property prices, in fact even more. the dream house still remains dream for most of us ;) although the availibility of loans and the general tendency towards taking loans has gone up and hence on an average people can buy their house (mebbe or may not be the dream one ;) ) at the age of 30
there is soooo much of demand. its totally seller's market as of now. the buyer has a very little say.

In india, there is sooo much of difference (in every aspect of life including standard of living, facilities, opportunities) between metro and non-metro cities (or we can say few good cities / states and other cities / states) that most of the population will try to migrate to these cities to make their dream come true. although i do not have the opinion that one should restrict these people, of course this is their country as well (in fact i'm a strong beiliver in one-earth, although that seems to be a dream thing). instead we all should try to improve all other cities /staets just to make them close to metros (or developed states). the govt. should make serious attempts in creating enough opportunities in such states. obviously one can't expect such changes in 2-3 yrs but at least some measures should be taken in that direction. this would help in several ways and the best is the country can grow as a whole rather than the growth being concentrated in selected few cities. also the NRI investment in real-estate could be one of the strong reasons for the prices to take a steep rise in the past 3-4 yrs.

there have been news about real estate market expecting a slow-down in around 2007. but i sincerely beilive that this will not happen at least next 2 yrs. only if the finance minister comes up with some stringent policy to discourage investment in real-estate, we can expect sudden drop in prices but that doesn't seem to be likely.

i have been thinking about investing in the real estate since last year but that time my capacity wasn't enough (rather it was too short) so i chose (did i have any other option ;) ) to wait. now that i can get reasonable amount of loan, i still can't afford to invest, as the prices have gone much higher than increase in the earning capacity. and i beilive if i don't make a move in the next few yrs, the gap might remain forever ;) just kidding. but yeah its always better to invest in real-estate as early as you can as the prices will keep on rising. very rarely we get to experience the downfall (last was in 95 if i'm not wrong).

well apart from all this, life is going pretty cool. i feel like i'm settled in symantec ;) its been 6 months already. so far so good and the future looks good as well :) having good time at work. started playing TT ocne again after long time. its great fun. its been long since i catched up on any latest movies. but would be going for spiderman -3 and Metro (im dying to see this one) hopefully it wont turn me down. the power shedding has reduced in mumbai. although recently pune has been experienceing power, water shortages. man ......... it's really sad. in a country like india and in cities like mumbai, pune there are power cuts for sevreal hours daily. well the issue deserves a seperate blog but probably some other time.

thats all for now.

-signing off
ameyas7