Good morning, the poor health of our bodies or the buildings we live in, both have a dangerous common trait.
If weakened by time and nature or built badly, bodies and buildings can both fail without any forewarning. Think cardiac arrests, renal failure or 6-floors crashing down simultaneously from under completely clueless families.
And yet, we continue to live in buildings that have been marked unsafe. We continue to write letters to unconcerned authorities when construction quality issues surface around us.
So many among us are going about our daily lives with a death wish, while many others are blissfully unaware of the unpredictable peril surrounding them and their loved ones.
Things To Do: If you feel the building you live or work in is unsafe, (and trust us, you know it) get everyone together and fix the problem before you become another page-18, collapse story victim in the morning papers.
🚴♀️🍎🥝
Is India In A Housing Bubble?
Chances are, if you are a homebuyer looking for your 'dream' home - whatever that means is beyond us - you will find what you really love is probably unaffordable.
After a few such failed attempts at closing a deal, you might feel that despite our stalling economy and shrinking GDP growth etc., rising home prices indicate that we may be in a real estate bubble. Are we though? Let's figure it out together.
What Is A Housing Bubble?
You can call out a housing bubble when there is a significant surge in home prices that isn’t related to other economic fundamentals, like job markets, income or wealth.
What Starts It?
A housing bubble can be caused by a variety of powerful forces like rising economic prosperity, low-interest rates, wider range of home loan offerings, and easy to access mortgage. Simply put, all these factors increase demand for housing, and as supply can't keep up with demand, home prices begin to increase.
What Pops It?
The top reasons that make a housing bubble pop include a downturn in the economy, black swan events like the pandemic, high levels of unemployment, and a rise in interest rates. All of these in effect take a hammer to housing demand, and as supply suddenly outstrips demand, home prices go into a free fall.
Where Do We Stand Today?
Housing prices are increasing, fuelled by sustainable demand on one side and runaway material costs on the other. (Steel, cement and other building material costs are at all time highs globally.) Which means the first part of the housing bubble definition stands true in our case.
However, its the pandemic that's fuelled a lifestyle demand for home ownership. Add to that record low interest rates, very high construction costs, and prices begin to rise.
Yes, there has been some speculative home buying, by local investors looking at rental income, folks buying a second home to create more equity, as well as NRIs wanting to own a slice of hot markets.
However, that doesn’t accurately reflect the vast majority of activity in the housing market, clearly meaning that there’s no housing bubble waiting to go 'pop' in India.
But, But, But...
With rapid urbanisation, India has such a shortage of standard housing supply, especially in the affordable housing segment, that homes are going to continue to come at a premium. So, should you wait for this non-existent bubble to burst to buy your home?
Of course you can. This is a free country.
Tramlining On A Monday Morning
Hey, Kolkata, right? Nope. Ah, Mumbai then. Nada again. That's Chandni Chowk in Delhi.
About Trams In India: Trams started plying across our country in the late-19th century. Horse-drawn trams were introduced in Kolkata in 1873; electric trams began in Chennai in 1895, and trams were also introduced in Mumbai, Kanpur, and Delhi.
Trams in Delhi began chugging along on 6 March, 1908 and at its peak in 1921, there were 24 open cars on 15 kilometres of embedded track.
They were discontinued in all Indian cities between 1933 and 1964, except for Kolkata, where they are mostly dead as well.
About Tramlining: Tramlining or nibbling is the tendency of a vehicle's wheels to follow the contours in the surface upon which it runs. The term comes from the tendency of a motorcycle's/car's wheels to follow the normally recessed rails of street trams, without driver input in the same way that the train does. And yes, it is a scary feeling.
Deep dive into more unseen pics of Delhi.
Unhappy Things We Are Watching
1️⃣ The beneficiaries of government run affordable housing programmes are having a tough time because affordable homes don't seem to be so affordable anymore. Plus, a mortgage requires proof of income and other documents that are impossible for the needy to conjure.
2️⃣ And to make things worse, 15 officials, including 6 Block Development Officers who served in Pudukottai, Tamil Nadu, have been booked on charges of swindling funds meant for the construction of houses for the poor under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Gramin (Prime Minister’s Rural Housing Scheme).
Right To Livelihood Includes Building Safety
Sadly, it has taken numerous building collapses across our top cities to infuriate the Indian judicial system.
My Cookie Crumbled In The Chai
No worries because far more serious things, like standalone residential buildings and 700-apartment housing societies are crumbling and falling apart as you read this, and in most cases humans are losing life and limb.
Are Safe Buildings Our Right?
Oh yes. On Saturday, the Bombay High Court clarified that right to livelihood under Article 21 includes the right to live in safe buildings and houses.
A Bench comprising Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice GS Kulkarni further reiterated that instances of people losing their lives due to building collapses need to be eradicated completely.
This came up during the hearing of a public interest litigation (PIL) initiated suo motu (on its own without request) to address the issue of crumbling buildings and illegal constructions in Maharashtra.
Will Someone Be Held Responsible?
Again, to clarify, the court stressed that the owner of the building, private or public, had a constitutional obligation to ensure the safety of the building premises.
The Bench also said that "strong arms of law" are required to punish the disorderly in order to save people from "unscrupulous elements" indulging in illegal constructions.
The Way Ahead?
Saturday's court order requisitioned a mechanism to empower concerned officers to enforce an audit of buildings as required by law, and buildings found structurally unsafe must be vacated so that further lives are not lost.
Our question: Can this be enforced nationally? Like ASAP?
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Real estate sector experts are bracing for the one big impact of the Ukraine situation - rise in the price of crude oil.
😬 They feel cement manufacturers will pass on this burden of higher cost to the real estate developer, as 60-65% of the cement business is either directly or indirectly linked to crude oil prices.
See you tomorrow morning at 7AM sharp. 💚
☕ The Crew@Ginger Chai