This week, I learned that only one word could describe Mumbai’s real-estate market: insane. Humour me. I've been looking for a new house for weeks, and it is all I think about while cooking, cleaning, driving, and even working! After work, on weekends, and during lunch breaks, I check prospective houses and haggle with brokers. My roommates and I act like an army, combing through an excel sheet of contacts and negotiating inflated prices all day. (Yes, we made an excel file. Yes, I'll share it with you if you ask politely... And then there is the “security deposit” one has to pay at the start of the tenancy, it can cost as much as a car! We've realised that saving and availing such large amounts of cash is incredibly difficult, especially for young professionals like us. From where I am, I can clearly see the allure of easy credit, especially for younger customers. It likely explains why ‘buy now, pay later (BNPL)’ can be a huge hit among users in their twenties. In the meantime, I intend to keep saving to keep up with my broker's mind-boggling deposit quotes - Hahahaha Mumbai ke Dalal, every fourth next person in our area is Dalla of real estate by way or the other.
