Your marital status and offspring, or the lack thereof, are hardly the only subjects that are supposed to be off-limits, but are clearly not for your relatives, neighbours, and even strangers you've just said hi to on a local train. If you live in a big city, I can bet my bottom dollar you've been asked some version of "own house or rent?"
And I'm sure you've read countless hot takes on why it makes sense to rent, rather than buy, an apartment. With absurdly expensive real estate in cities such as Mumbai, and the salary-account-depleting EMIs you have to put up with, maybe there is merit in this argument.
The housing in all major cities has become much more affordable in the past eight years. As a result, millennials—the cohort that had become wary of buying a house—were suddenly enamored of the idea of becoming homeowners. The pandemic, which turned bedrooms into offices, certainly helped.
It was not surprising that listed realty companies hired 25-30% more in the second half of the year ended March 2022 than they did in the first. But the party couldn't go on forever. With India's central bank hiking the key lending rate by 90 basis points in the past two months, home loans are considerably dearer.
So, will millennials once again find refuge in the scepticism they thought they'd left behind? Will developers have to relive the past horror of being saddled with thousands of unsold flats?
