Twilight of the Taj Mahal

Almost any economy where buying is expensive, renting works out cheaper.

From the perspective of owning a property. You have far higher costs. That starts with firstly buying land and developing it. Money doesn't grow on trees, so you need take out loan, and pay inflation standard interests to do that. This is while you weather lay off risks, and other deprecation costs. At this point in time, in any major city in India, you need 2+ crores to build a decent rental property.

Then come maintenance costs, long term costs of holding the property(Property taxes), holding the risks of encroachment etc.

Secondly your point on taxes on rent is not entirely right. You will be surprised how easy it is to attract audit and raids. It happens all the time.

Lastly. In case of renting you have no loan risk, you have no encroachment risk, you have mobility advantage, you can look for newly developed properties and stay there. You can shift every time you find amenities of a different property to be better. All of this in a pay-as-you-go model.

Most of the landlords are not the IT guys mind you. They are mostly the former farmers who have held large pieces of land around towns. I don't know about Bangalore, but farmer communities around Delhi have grown rich by coming together as vote bank and getting compensated multiple times for the same pieces of lad they.

> Also you don't even have to go that far, even in the 1990s, during the peak of onsite-money techies in Bangalore were swimming in, most currently high valued properties in the vicinity of ring-road today were available for almost free(Comparative to IT salaries of the day).

How many were employed in IT during that time? As far as I remember, IT scene exploded circa 2000 onward when likes of TCS, and Infosys started recruiting via truckload. Like 75 - 200 rupees/psqft.

You are implying that every single IT guy had the opportunity to earn mighty. Those few who had the opportunity have done exceptionally anyways but that is a minority.

> Most of the crowd either does not have what it takes to think in terms of such long durations of time.

Yes hence they think of the short term i.e. earning as much as possible via whatever means necessary. My original comment was an answer to GP's moralistic attitude. If that 18 year old kid wants to be a Doctor to earn as much as possible that is because he has seen dumb ass people around him getting richer.

How that is any immoral then someone profiting insanely from something their grandfathers hoarded?

What a shame, it's literally falling apart. I remember visiting the Taj Mahal back in the day (15-20 years ago) on a full moon night, do they still open on certain nights? Imagine how it would shimmer in the dark, if they still had all the precious stones encrusted in the marble!

Cold hearted profiteering isn't evil. If done properly it will save India. Even with "socialist principles" guiding our governments, cold hearted profiteering has survived and thrived. Rather than using this natural impulse for good, the socialist idiocy has instead resulted in crony thievery.

>>Most of the landlords are not the IT guys mind you.

Yes, that exactly what I'm saying. If you have a 20+ year timescale you don't have to earn very high to make these investments.

>>but farmer communities around Delhi have grown rich by coming together as vote bank and getting compensated multiple times for the same pieces of lad they.

They have a right to. Getting rich isn't exactly a crime.

>>How many were employed in IT during that time? As far as I remember, IT scene exploded circa 2000 onward when likes of TCS, and Infosys started recruiting via truckload. Like 75 - 200 rupees/psqft.

Plenty. There was also Gulf money. The real issue is, again, very few people can think on a 20+ year timescale.

>>You are implying that every single IT guy had the opportunity to earn mighty.

To be super frank with you. These were throwaway prices even back then. Most investors turn out be people with retirement money, many times Auto drivers, small kirana shop owners etc. Which is why there is so much resentment now. There are people who had 100x advantage over these people, and there has been drastic reshuffling of seats.

>>If that 18 year old kid wants to be a Doctor to earn as much as possible that is because he has seen dumb ass people around him getting richer.

There is nothing dumb about making long term investment decisions.

>>How that is any immoral then someone profiting insanely from something their grandfathers hoarded?

Nothing immoral going on here. Somebody decided to work hard, invest in lands, and ensure their grandkids are well off. If you don't want to invest and do all this, it's really your choice. Why do you suggest others make the same mistake?