bubble world tour / india

i have put the focus in the house prices. please click on the headline to read how the boom in india is transforming the society ( worth the read )

Wealth Splits Traditional Indian Homes as Sons Buy Room to Move

ich habe hier den focus auf die immobilienpreise gelegt. ich empfehle zudem auf die überschrift zu klicken um sich die auswirkungen des booms auf langjährig gewachsene familienstrukturen durchzulesen.

May 16 (Bloomberg) -- Partha Bose is on the move. After marrying in June, he's checking out apartments a half-hour drive from his parents' two-bedroom home in New Delhi.

``I'm more open to taking on debt than my father,'' said the 28-year-old events manager, who has lived with his parents all his life. ``Job opportunities have increased quite a lot compared to even five years back.''

The fastest wage growth in Asia and expanding career choices are helping split India's family unit. Young couples can now afford to buy their own apartments instead of sharing often- cramped family homes, eroding centuries of tradition and sometimes leaving elderly parents to fend for themselves.

The shift is fueling demand for homes in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, where prices have more than tripled since 2004. India will need as many as 10 million new housing units a year by 2030, the Manila-based Asian Development Bank estimates.....

Wages will rise 14.5 percent on average in 2007, the fifth straight year of double-digit increases, according to Hewitt Associates Inc., a Chicago-based human resources company. Last year's 14.4 percent increase eclipsed that in China. .....

A marketing job at International Business Machines Corp. in Bangalore lured Jasleen Makker from her parents' New Delhi home last year. Makker and her husband decided to buy their first home when the rent for their apartment in one of Bangalore's middle- class neighborhoods rose to the equivalent of $363 a month.

``We were paying ever-increasing rents in Bangalore,'' said Makker, 28. ``Once we made up our minds, interest rates really didn't matter.''

Mortgage rates have fallen to 11.25 percent for a 15-year loan from as high as 18 percent in the 1990s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Lending increased 11-fold to $38 billion in the five years through 2005.

First Property
More than 80 percent of borrowers are buying their first property, according to accounting firm Ernst & Young. The average age of home-loan recipients plunged to 33 in 2005 from 43 in 1999.

Still, the booming market is pushing home ownership beyond the means of many Indians. Price rises in cities such as Hyderabad, Mumbai and New Delhi averaged between 50 percent and 100 percent last year

Roshni, a legal and accounting consultant who uses only one name, said she and her husband have abandoned their dream of buying a home in Mumbai. Instead, they will remain in her in- laws' three-bedroom apartment with their 8-year-old son.

``Property prices in Mumbai are now comparable to those in New York,'' said Roshni, 37. Two-bedroom apartments in Malabar Hill, which the Times of India calls Mumbai's ``poshest address,'' sell for $610,000 to $854,000, said S. N. Chopra of Hill Estates, a local property consultant. Rents range from $2,500 to $3,600 a month, he said.

By comparison, a 2-bedroom apartment in downtown Manhattan costs $1.74 million on average, according to Miller Samuel Inc., a New York real estate firm.