Good morning, increasingly, residents of Bangalore are finding it hard to pay their property taxes online through the BBMP portal.
The culprit - an annoying error message on the first page of transaction that reads - … missing street name.
Here's what we gathered;
- Netizens who had been paying their taxes online for almost a decade now are suddenly being ill-treated by error messages from the BBMP portal
- The occurrence of the error has likely begun since April 2022
- It is not a technical problem, but more of a glitch that resulted from the recent zonal freezing where wards and streets had to be mapped, and
- Simply walking into the nearest BBMP office with your property details can get the problem resolved.
If you live in Bangalore and are staring at such an error message, keep calm and think of the poor IRCTC servers from just a decade ago.
All for the greater good. 🙏
– Rahul Mishra and Anuvab Chattopadhyay
Dubai's Russian Romance
Dubai’s property market is ensconced in a passionate Russian romance, one that has seen investors from Russia and 11 other CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) making up 20% of prospective home buyers in the Emirate.
Recent reports suggest Russian and CIS individuals account for 10% of realty investments in Dubai this year and most of them are snapping up waterfront and ready-to-move-in homes.
The what and why of things
Industry watchers state that the prospective investor community now has a majority of Russian speakers in Dubai.
With instability being a defining theme for Eastern Europe and the flight of more investors, their families, and capital to Dubai, this shift was expected. Non-Russian CIS buyers also comprise 10% and more of all property leads in the Emirate.
What has been a game-changer?
🎫 The new 10-year UAE Golden Visa for starters.
📈 More ease of doing business, newer job opportunities after the Dubai Expo, premier education, and luxury lifestyles - essentially the red carpet for expats (naturally, they comprise 80% of Dubai’s population today).
The Changing Global Proptech Playbook
Proptech firms are poised to garner investments up to USD1 billion in 2025 (doubling 2020’s tally) according to a Colliers and CII report.
💡 VR, AI, IoT and more are going to drive proptech, while the upcoming 5G rollout will boost the real estate tech market in India.
While proptech is firmly in the saddle, there could be winds of change blowing Far East.
Propzy cuts 50% staff
Per this recent report, Vietnamese proptech player Propzy has cut 50% of staff from last September and revamped its business model. Most of the folks who were handed out pink slips hailed from the sales team.
Why?
🎚 As margins dwindle, Propzy is automating its direct brokerage solutions, rendering such positions unnecessary.
🎚 Its marketplace has properties authenticated by its team. However, instead of big-ticket internal operations, it is relying fully on third-party agents to close deals.
🎚 As the strategy shifts, hiring is now being done for newer products like PropzyHome - a modern townhouse selected and redesigned by the startup.
Clearly, with the take rates generally low, many other proptech startups may stop pushing for revenues from home sales in the future.
Is this a big shift? Will proptech re-align again? Time will tell.
Infra-Read Thursday: Here Comes The Train
With the completion of its majestic arches and most of the civil work, the construction of the iconic Chenab Arch Bridge, soaring 359 metres above the bed of the river and 30 metres higher than the Eiffel Tower in Paris, is almost ready for that locomotive to roll across.
💡 The bridge will provide the much-needed all-weather connectivity between Kashmir and the rest of the county. Image: RJ Production, Twitter.
Emptying Faster Than You Can Eat A Cuba Cheese
Cubans are leaving their homeland in droves and a result of this mass exodus, much of the country’s property is listed for sale.
📌 Some are trying to enter the United States through Mexico via land - U.S. authorities have already counted 35,000 Cuban citizens last month at its southwest border. Foreign embassies are bursting at the seams, while many other Cubans are venturing towards Panama and Nicaragua before moving into the U.S.
Why the exodus?
1️⃣ Cuba’s sorry economic situation, exaggerated by the Government’s junking of the dual currency framework along with unstoppable inflation.
2️⃣ A sharp slide in tourism has ensured that most Cubans are out of cash to buy oil, food - basically everything.
3️⃣ Add a deep-rooted fear of the Government to the mix and it becomes heady, pushing more people to use the exit.
What of real estate?
Cubans fleeing their homeland are willing to offload every immovable asset, even at a loss.
Asking prices are halving in most localities like Havana and as desperation mounts, distress sales are par for the course for a cash hungry population.
What’s likely to happen?
⚠ Growing inequality and unrest.
The Cuban Government’s blaming the U.S. for mass immigration and its economic slump, slamming the long-term embargo and economic sanctions imposed by ex-President Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, property listings keep swelling endlessly. Real estate, anyone? At unbelievably throw-away prices.
---------------
Nobel laureate Paul Krugman just compared the cryptocurrency craze to the mid-2000s housing bubble in this recent New York Times column.
He warned the hype around digital currency resembled people's unwavering faith in the US housing market before it tanked, sparking a global financial crisis.
That aside, keep the faith. Have a good day. 💚
☕ The Crew@Ginger Chai