Good morning, in other job-eating news, a computer can now code at the same level as an average human programmer.
👩💻 An artificial intelligence (AI) system developed by Google’s DeepMind ranked within the top 54% of human coders in a coding contest, marking the first time an AI code generation system performed competitively in programming competitions, DeepMind said.
These results mean that now a flexible, problem-solving AI module can autonomously tackle coding challenges that are currently the domain of humans only.
Now, how about making computers that want to own property?
What Does India's Mortgage To GDP Ratio Imply?
Defined as the share of total mortgages in the economy, the mortgage to GDP ratio is a key indicator of the state of housing finance in a country.
India's mortgage to GDP ratio today is just about 10 to 11%, while in most emerging economies, this ratio is over 20%, and in advanced economies, it can hover between 60 to 70%.
Zooming In
In fact, this proportion is 18% in China, 20% in Thailand, 31% in Korea, 34% in Malaysia, 38% in Taiwan, 52% in Singapore and 56% in the USA.
In comparison, India's much lower mortgage to GDP ratio reflects the low penetration of housing finance, due to several reasons.
For housing finance companies (HFCs), this also translates into a very large opportunity for growth.
And The Demand For Housing Is Robust
HDFC Limited's Keki Mistry is quite vocal about it too. He feels that demand for housing and thus mortgage, will remain high for a long time to come because:
📈 As urbanisation picks up, demand for housing will pick up in urban areas.
📈 The Union Budget 2022 will create a ton of new jobs and more people will have more income, resulting in a sustained uptick in housing demand.
Zooming Out
The other important ratio, between mortgages and new home purchases, should be hovering close to 1, we reckon. (Who buys a home without housing finance anyway? Escobar?)
And as home loans are the most lucrative credit product for banks and HFCs - with low levels of non performing assets (NPAs) to boot - finding a lender to fund your home purchase today is a piece of cake.
That's one more reason we could soon be skirting the 15% ratio between home loans and our GDP. Gentle reminder; the USA is at 56%.
BMC's FY23 Gift To Home Owners - Zero Tax
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is India's richest municipal body and in its FY23 Budget, it has truly used all that financial prowess to assist the common man's financial recovery.
What are you saying?
Not us. The BMC just announced that in FY23, the property tax levied on homes measuring up to 500 sq. ft. (carpet area) will equal a grand total of 0.0
No Pain, No Gain.
This decision will cost the municipal body INR 462 crore next fiscal, while taking 16,14,000 Mumbaikars off antacids, as they find themselves property tax free.
Weekend Conversation Starter
Modular Homes Can Ease The Housing Crisis, But...
The demand for affordable housing around the world today is insatiable, and with over 3 million people migrating to cities every week, urban centres must sustainably and swiftly ramp-up new home construction.
Modular Homes Offer A Promising Solution
Q. But what are they, really?
A. Modular homes start life in parts, which are built in a factory-like setting. The finished portions are then transported to the homes' actual locations, where a builder assembles them.
💡 These homes are also called factory-built, system-built, or prefab homes (short for prefabricated).
Is It Umm, Complicated?
Not at all. Per this FT report, modern modular building techniques can;
🏗 Allow real estate developers to make flexible units in factories before transporting them for rapid on-site assembly.
🏗 Enable home parts to be built like giant Lego bricks, often within days, with less waste and at lower costs than traditional buildings.
🏗 Also ensure high-quality design and finishes.
Then What's Stopping Us From Going Modular?
🔧 Experts feel that despite immense progress in construction techniques, we continue to build houses using a 100-year old method because of vested interests, lack of vision and a stigma associated with modular homes throwing the spanner in the works.
🔧 Also, like any other factory, efficiencies come from scale, aka repeat orders, and a lot of prefab manufacturers simply don’t have the order volumes.
🔧 And, how can we forget that real estate developers are reluctant to deliver hundreds of houses at a time, mostly because of market pressures.
😅 If a project of 250 homes is delivered at one go within a few months from launch, developers would be axing their own feet affecting their own margins.
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🎙 “We can end cancer as we know it,” tweeted Joe Biden yesterday.
The POTUS further detailed that the Cancer Moonshot will work to:
- Cut the cancer death rate by at least 50% over the next 25 years
- Turn more cancers from death sentences to chronic diseases people can live with
- Create a more supportive experience for patients and families
Joy to the weekend. See you on Monday morning. 💚
☕ The Crew@Ginger Chai