While I am settling in Delhi, I keep comparing it with Mumbai and Hyderabad. While Hyderabad is my hometown, Mumbai is a city I liked a lot. I have spent first week of June at Mumbai and then moved to Delhi, so I've some recent Mumbai experience that I can use for comparison.
If I have to say it in short, it will be like this - Delhi is comparable to Hyderabad in terms of weather, locality, attitude of people etc and is comparable to Mumbai (atleast Navi Mumbai) in terms of cost of living, diversity of people, footpath business etc. What Delhi lacks is the attitude of Mumbaikars. Despite having smaller roads, heavy rains and many other problems, Mumbai people live on and are very nice. You would see innovation in everything at Mumbai and the quality of things is much better in Mumbai. People are quite aggressive and proud in Delhi but they are not better in anyway when compared to people in Hyderabad. You can observe these things with the Autowallahs, rentals agents, house owners, craftsmen, bank employees, bus conductors and drivers. Mumbai people are highly efficient and always focus on getting things done quickly while Delhi guys talk big but do little.
I have been disappointed by the service I get despite paying premium, which is comparable to what I would pay in Mumbai. At this cost I get much better service in Mumbai. Hyderabad, on the other hand, is slowly moving towards Delhi in the sense that all the service providers started demanding premium without improving the service in anyway. In Mumbai you atleast get better service. Hyderbadis are known to be laid back people but because of IT and ITes boom, things are getting expensive in Hyderabad.
One unrelated but nevertheless serious one is about the real estate scenario in India. I was going through the Knowledge at Wharton's latest article and felt that Indian Real estate has gone through very similar cycle with certain minor exceptions and excesses. While the Indian financial sector has not gone as far as US guys did due to various reasons including market not being fully developed, they followed their US counterparts in many things. They have been overlending beyond the normal limit of 80% but inflating the property value. The cap rate in India is quite high compared to any other similar market making it vulnerable for a fall. But there is a significant difference between US and Indian cultures that would not allow a big crisis to happen here. First Indians believe in lifetime employment and generally wouldn't leave jobs in difficult time. Though most of the service sector jobs are dependent on global market, predominantly US, these firms are trying hard to diversify and they are still competitive despite talks about US recession and weak dollar. Indian non-services sector has also been going global particularly non-US, which can insulate it to certain extent from US recession.
But as the interest rates go up, and new job creation slowing down, there will be pressure on rentals and new real estate purchases, which would lead to drop in property prices. While most of the deals that are underway may sail safely, some may have to face rough weather. New deals would be delayed and may not happen at previously projected figures and this would be first indication of the change.
I have been an investor in the real estate and though I see property rates coming down, I don't foresee loosing much as I have entered it 3 years back. But those entering now or have entered in the last two years will see some erosion in value.
While most of India will be able to manage slight slowdown and would be happy inflation coming down, there is a limit to what it can handle.
All these developments hint at a grim situation, which can only change if the political forces join hands with the intellectuals and don't get carried away into any one path too deep. Patience, prudence and judgment are required. I hope the Man of India comes up with some magic and save us all.
It’s not just fancy roads and buildings that make a city livable. There’s a lot more by way of amenities that add life to it. By focusing on infrastructure that enhances quality of living, like parks, play grounds and thoroughfares, a city makes the grade. A city is more about the people that live in it. And while planning a city, it’s the people that should be thought of first, then the infrastructure needs to be developed. Similarly, the relatively new areas of Gurgaon, New Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore may have witnessed a deluge of real estate investment over the last decade, but they have failed to create livable urban spaces that really work. Gurgaon, a flashy boom town that has emerged almost overnight with shopping malls, condominiums and swank office towers, despite it being touted as ‘planned’ development, is hardly people-friendly. This is because it neither has a meaningful municipal waste disposal system nor a proper public transport network. As a result, the city, still half-built, already suffers from serious traffic snarls, power shortages and water-supply constraints.For more view- realtydigest.blogspot.com
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Nothing symbolizes Japan's bubble economy, or its subsequent long slump, more than real estate. Now, after dropping by as much as 70%, real estate prices are ticking up, signaling a renewed Japanese economy. A major restructuring of the nation's financial system, along with an injection of foreign capital and the introduction of publicly traded real estate investment trusts, are driving the real estate revival, according to Wharton faculty and real estate analysts working in Tokyo.
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