New Delhi, March 15, 2018: More than half of India’s population, approximately 600 million people are under 25 years of age. The country is rapidly urbanizing and more and more young, educated, professionals are flocking to urban neighborhoods across the country in search of jobs and economic opportunities. Some estimations suggest that in the next 20 years, 30 Indians from rural areas will move to an urban area almost every minute.
While more young professionals are choosing to stay in cities. What does it mean for home ownership? Owning a home has long been one ultimate dream every individual living in India. Living a free life, not being chargeable to any landowner, not having to bear monthly rent; it was once considered a perfect way to live. But, today young millennials are increasingly choosing to rent and home ownership has turned into a thing of the past. It would not be wrong to say that India has a growing appetite for rental housing.
But why this shift? Well, Home ownership comes with boundaries, and today millennials are looking beyond the boundaries; they travel, switch jobs, change cities and some even like living as digital nomads. Renting precisely gives them that ‘Flexibility’; but again, living as a renter exposes them to annoyances and hardships that are universal. Landlord discernment and increasing rental prices are driving a co-living boom in India, can Co-living be the answer to these universal tenant issues?
7 Common Tenant Issues
- Searching The Right Property
Searching for the perfect house that is near to office/college and is positioned near supermarkets, shopping centers, and other hubs for everyday needs is one big challenge in renting. Above that, it should come in the budget and should also be safe. Finding an apartment on rent that addresses all the needs of the tenant is often a challenge, hence one has to compromise.
- Dealing With Brokers
Always an unpleasant experience to deal with, brokers are always a pain. They demand for one month’s rent as their commission, are often are very half-hearted in their approach and don’t bother about ones wants and preferences as long as their job is done.
- Unaffordable Rents & Exorbitant Deposits
Renting an apartment is not cheaper, to rent one needs to pay huge deposits and unaffordable rents. Rents and deposits are no more determined by the size and dimension of the house, but by locations. While inopportune, it’s a general practice, and renters are forced to bear such claims.
- Inadequate Refunds
It is common for a renter while looking at houses to find landowners expecting excessive amounts as deposits, but when it comes to refund only a fractional sum of this security amount is refunded. Claiming for damage, maintenance, and painting homeowners deduct unfair amounts of the security deposit.
- Unfair Abjurations (Young Bachelors)
The bachelor population owes its bad reputation to few miscreants. It’s more of a shame than a fact-based opinion that bachelors are not a decent idea to rent to. Many landlords refuse to rent out to bachelors because they feel most of the bachelors involve in illicit activities, damage properties, and only spell trouble.
- Precocious Evictions
Irrespective of paying rent faithfully, unexpected eviction is an ill-fated truth faced by renters across the country. To get rid of the tenants, landlords claim that they are going to use the property for personal use, leaving the tenant helpless and with no option but to evacuate the property.
- Rent Inflation
Major cities in India see high demands of rent from the landowners and these numbers only surge with time. Landlords increase the rent amounts on an annual basis, without even considering the factors like maintenance and the state of the building property. Tenants usually have two choices, either pay or vacate.
Enter Co-Living – Rethinking Rentals
High blockades to homeownership drive shift toward Renting – And barriers to renting are driving the shift towards Co-living. Millennials in India are increasingly shifting towards co-living as a new form of renting where they choose “living as a service” and enjoy experiences and not high demanding landlords. Co-living is slowly becoming the new norm in India for young professionals, DINK couples, and college students.
Co-living serves as the most cost-effective housing solution in big cities where rent, security deposit and furnishing cost of an apartment are high. Rising rents and exorbitant deposits make co-living spaces an attractive, and practical, alternative.
Discrimination against young bachelors is rampant in India. Co-living start-ups have made living easier for the young millennials. Unfair abjurations to young bachelors, discriminations of renting out only to vegetarians and only to non-Muslims are few of the peculiar problem co-living solves in this country.
Co-living models are truly transforming old-style renting, they not only offer a place to stay but also come fully loaded with amenities, access to a community, Wi-Fi, TV, and cleaning & laundry services, and rent them out to millennials, rescuing them from quotidian anxieties.
Corporate Comm India(CCI Newswire)
