I knew real estate in Mumbai was expensive but I had no idea how expensive it was. This place is insane. Our office is on Linking Rd, right on the border between Khar and Bandra. I detest commuting so I was looking for an apartment closeby. The prices are insane. For pretty shabby furnished and unfurnished studios, prices were anywhere between Rs 14,000 to 20,000 per month. That’s a lot of money for a small apartment.
Real estate is booming all across India but I wonder if prices are just getting unrealistically high. It’s not as if the quality of construction of most places is very good. Most places are in fact in a perpetual state of repair and/or dysfunction, but prices have skyrocketed with so much liquidity in the market.
I was talking to my cousin the other day about how salaried people survive in Mumbai. Businesspeople and financiers here have a lot of money here — Mumbai after all generates some 40% of India’s GNP, but life for salaried people is crap here. The housing is bad, traffic is nightmarish and everything is just so expensive, compared to other places in India.
My standard of reference is China, which is another rapidly developing country. In Shanghai, Hangzhou and Kunming, cities which I’ve lived in, in the last 3 years, the same apartment I’ve rented here would cost much less — in Shanghai probably 60%, in Hangzhou 50%, and in Kunming, 20% of what I’m paying in Mumbai. And the quality of construction would be at least 50% better.
Go figure.
