Should you buy a house?
Frankly Indians over build and then we all over buy. If there are more assets than users (forget buyers, that we have enough) it is obvious that rental properties will be available…
Currently in the building that we live there are 84 flats available for usage and in the past 6 months about 4 flats are lying vacant. The landlords and their agents are looking for a tenant, and pretty desperately at that. I have no clue whether they are searching smartly or foolishly…the fact is it is vacant..and available..so it is your call..but do read what this American author has to say…
http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=ca6ae38471d227b05e07a47e9&id=bf2e6bec25
MRHDK2012
I live in Baner area in Pune which is pretty well developed and our society is 5-6 years old. Out of 108 flats about 75 are occupied. This is the case with most of the buildings in our area. Unoccupied flats are owned by so called ‘investors’. Some of them are overseas, some in Mumbai, some are having houses in other parts of Pune. Most of them don’t understand returns and are not exposed to financial markets. Some of them have also generated their incomes in cash which forces them to invest in real estate.
3 BHKs are selling for a crore and are renting out at 16-18K resulting in rental yields of 2%.
Puneet
I thought this kind of ‘lying vacant’ situation is ONLY in Bengaluru.
With the current number of houses available, a house has become a commodity not an asset.
Shyam Sunder
Nice one. How about investing in plots or houses that are available cheap for. example in beyond city outskirts,in anticipation of future developments
Arun
Thanks for sharing. I have saved the entire article for myself….Altucher broke lot of myths…one that I particularly liked is this –
If companies aren’t growing, I can tell you that housing prices will go lower. Because housing prices depend on the stability of employment.
By definition then, companies will always grow faster than housing, in aggregate.
Kumar
There is a lot of diff between between a HOUSE & LIVELABLE HOUSE & GUD ONE.
In Bangalore when I went in search of house., most of them are just a bunch rooms called as houses. 2BHK’s crammed into an 1BHK area. In same apartment some houses are well maitained and other’s are in dialipated state. You have to repair half of the lights & bathroom fitting just in 3months., but you had to give a month rent when you leave for repairs.
So to say simply IT DEPENDS.