Rental housing and luxury apartment culture in Cochin

Started by Stomberg, April 11, 2011, 06:01:01 AM

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Stomberg

There are always individuals and households not interested in owning a home or just simply not able to afford it.  Such groups should go for rental housing.  The National Housing Bank and its subsidiaries used to finance an investment intending to rent out one or two rooms in earlier times.  However, in recent times many far-reaching changes have taken place with this institution as well.  The National Commission on Urbanization has already made detailed recommendations regarding the reforms initiated with respect to rent control legislations.
 
 It may be noted that in the urban centers, the fringe areas of the city and in the rural areas, the major losers of land were the households owning more then one acre of land.  The process of accumulation of land by the rich farmers has been arrested by various socio-economic reasons.  With very high land prices, fuelled by the infusion of funds from non-agricultural sources, attractiveness of land as a means of production has come down.  Land bought at high prices can become profitable for cultivation only if productivity and commodity prices are increasing steeply.  However, this has not been happening in the region and this has reduced the net return over cost and affected the profitability of cultivation.  Therefore, land has lost its importance as a means of production and a source of living, contributing to large scale selling of land by the rich farmers.
 
 With respect to the proliferation of Villas Cochin has taken the lead mainly because such villas are in great demand not only from the investors but also from the cash savvy businessmen who frequent this city.  These people are willing to pay any amount of money as rent to live in such posh villas.  Thus these villas have now appreciated greatly in price and the returning Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) do have a special affinity to such housing amenities.  But this trend is not seen in other cities in Kerala.  Scores of real estate agents do eke out a living by selling such high cost living spaces at high rentals to such esteemed customers.