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Tata Building $7,800 Apartments in Mumbai
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat May 09, 2009 01:27 PM
from the piece-of-the-rock dept.
from the piece-of-the-rock dept.
theodp writes "What do you do for an encore after you've shown the world it's possible to build a $2,000 car? Ratan Tata, head of India's giant Tata conglomerate, now plans to build, 30 miles outside of Mumbai, 1,200 tiny apartments that will sell for $7,800 to $13,400 each. Sure, they're small (floor plans), but keep in mind that you can pay a quarter of a million bucks for a 250-sq.-ft. studio in the East Village. Time reports that Tata has had to beef up security to handle the rush of buyers who want to plunk down their $200 deposits (yes, that's two hundred dollars!). Who would've thought you could make IKEA homes look pricey?" The Businessweek.com article says that the apartments are aimed at someone making $6,000 to $10,000 per year (Time says $5,000). In Mumbai, a call center operator with 10 to 20 years of experience barely qualifies at $6,400 annually. 70% of the country's 1.2 billion people live on 1/20 as much.
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Technology: World's Cheapest Car Goes On Sale In India 571 comments
Frankie70 writes "The Tata Nano — the car that caught the world's imagination as the cheapest ever — will finally be rolled out commercially on Monday in Mumbai in a mega event organised by Tata Motors. Ben Oliver, contributing editor, Car Magazine, London test drove the car in December, 08. These were his first impressions. This was his verdict: 'CAR's first ride in the Tata Nano felt far more significant and exciting than a first drive in a Ferrari or Lamborghini, because this car's importance is immeasurably greater. It won't compete on dynamics or quality with European or Japanese city cars, but it doesn't have to. What Tata has achieved at an unprecedented price is astonishing, although we'd guess it will cost Indian consumers closer to £1700 when it finally goes on sale, six months late, in March 2009.'"
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very cheap + little material =unsafe (Score:2, Insightful)
i wouldn't be surprised if these buildings couldn't survive 45 mph winds
Re:very cheap + little material =unsafe (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry, though; you should be OK in one. It's India, so you're much more likely to hit a pedestrian than another car.
Parent
Re:very cheap + little material =unsafe (Score:5, Informative)
Indian traffic is a good example of anarchy in practice.
Parent
There's Safety in Numbers (Score:5, Interesting)
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Not Ghetto (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, God forbid I ask a question of someone who appears knowledgeable and interested in a related topic, also giving a chance to some other interested party to respond. Nope, I should take whatever pre-packaged info already exists provided I tweak the query enough to get something relevant.
I prefer my information to be organic, thank you very much.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You must know nothing about India if you think a place with pipes (never mind running water, we're just talking drainage), four solid walls, a roof and a floor is anything short of "middle class".
Maybe in 40, 50 years the places would be considered slums/projects, if India continues to improve at the rate it has been. But from the looks of things, they should serve as suitable housing until they're ready for replacement. And if they leave room between the buildings/complexes, and don't make the complexes to
Re:very cheap + little material =unsafe (Score:5, Insightful)
unsafe
As safe or safer than a motorcycle or bicycle. The word "unsafe" is thrown around all the time without regard for alternatives and real-life trade-offs.
Parent
Re:very cheap + little material =unsafe (Score:4, Interesting)
Have you seen how they build the average home? A normal priced home in my area is around $300k and if you see how they build them I don't see how these cheap structures could be much worse and remain standing.
You get a bunch of idiots with little understanding of physics haphazardly building from poorly conceived plans using the cheapest building materials they can find. If something isn't right then band-aid it so it'll pass inspection and don't worry that two months later it'll go to hell. So long as these cheap apartments follow international building code at least as well as the local schmucks then I doubt it could be any worse.
I'd think a micro apartment could be great for people that commute. A local place to take a nap or shower or stay over in bad weather. I'd consider buying one if they had them locally. A plac
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So long as these cheap apartments follow international building code
I had no idea, but there apparently is an international building code. Granted, it's not law in many places, but it is interesting still.
Re:very cheap + little material =unsafe (Score:5, Informative)
The International Building Code is an American building code. Americans have this strange habit of calling their stuff "world" or "international", e.g. World Series Baseball.
India has their own building code.
Parent
Re:very cheap + little material =unsafe (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you seen how they build the average home? A normal priced home in my area is around $300k and if you see how they build them I don't see how these cheap structures could be much worse and remain standing.
Do you have any idea of the markup they have(had) on those homes? Are you thinking of a prebubble-burst price?
How much is tied up in impact fees, taxes, other miscellaneous hardware, not to mention the land?
What's the square footage of these homes? A 4k square foot monster? 2k 3 bedroom with a huge kitchen?
People don't NEED* that much space. In poorer areas, that 2k square foot house would be a multifamily structure. India is still poorer.
So everything costs less - labor, materials, land, etc... And the resources required for a 'McMansion' - a cheaply constructed large house, can instead be used to build smaller homes much better.
These are likely to be cheap and small though - but still better than what the renters/buyers would otherwise have.
Like with the Tata car - you have to realize that even though the car isn't safe compared to other cars, the market for the most part consists of those that would otherwise be riding mopeds/motorcycles, which aren't safer than the car, especially when you consider the things they do with it - like the pictures where they have seven people on the same bike at the same time, or are carrying a huge load of ducks or firewood.
Risk management and resource usage wise, the Tata is a good choice.
*I will admit that it can be nice
Parent
Re:very cheap + little material =unsafe (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:very cheap + little material =unsafe (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually you have more chance to survice a motorcycle crash than being rolled up in a tin can.
That aside, security standards aren't the same around the world and there are far less chance fo these tin cars to smash against a big SUV in india.
As for the apartments, they beat the slums by a long shot.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Tata cars have proven themselves to be unsafe for driving (no protection, and the car frame is too thin)
i wouldn't be surprised if these buildings couldn't survive 45 mph winds
Never mind the call center workers who also provide the same abysmally low service.
Re:very cheap + little material =unsafe (Score:5, Insightful)
safe is the biggest marketing scam in western society. SUVs were born to market safe vehicles for hockey moms, desire for safety got Bush re-elected.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
People are just slowly producing larger and larger scams, so at any time one of the current scams is guaranteed to be the biggest evar.
Re:not compared to the replacement (Score:5, Insightful)
I must admit, I'd buy and drive a Nano here in the US for in-town commuting.
But I'd totally shove a Hayabusa engine in it.
Parent
Re:not compared to the replacement (Score:4, Funny)
Then again, I'm here too.
Parent
Don't subvert the architect's vision (Score:5, Funny)
We don't want another Cortlandt Homes incident.
Re:Don't subvert the architect's vision (Score:5, Informative)
Good thing that the Cortland Homes incident never actually happened.
(For those who do not know, it was a quasi-plausible scenario followed by non-plausible reactions from an Ayn Rand book.)
Parent
Darnit, I got excited (Score:3, Funny)
You can get a house for that (Score:5, Interesting)
The median price of a house in Detroit is $7500 [walletpop.com]. Floorplans vary, but they are larger than these apartments. Home prices are relative.
I'm sure people are happy to buy a nice place in Mumbai, so the market supports higher prices. No one wants to live in a corrupt one-party third-world conflict zone like Detroit.
Re:You can get a house for that (Score:5, Funny)
if the houses there all look like the one in the picture then i'd rather take a tata flat.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I sometimes wonder if it would be cheaper to buy a house in Detroit and just have it moved to somewhere else. I know doing that is crazy expensive, but come on, a house for 7500$?
Re: (Score:2)
... just not the crap house shown in the page you linked to.
Bleh!
Re: (Score:2)
It's the median price. That means half of the houses are cheaper than $7500 and the other half are more expensive. There will be plenty of variety.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The median price of a home sold in Detroit in December [2008] was $7,500, according to Realcomp, a listing service.
Their site doesn't make data public (some spreadsheets are available to registered agents,) so I can't tell if that was a really odd month (very few sales?) Checking Century 21 listings under $25k for Detroit shows very few entries for under $10k, making the likelihood of a median of $7500 rather low, even under their less-than-stellar market conditions. Maybe the county records can clarify, but I'm done fact-checking. I'll agree their housing is cheap though; and I'm in Oklahoma, so that's saying somethin
But that's not ALL! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Tata's riding a wave... (Score:5, Insightful)
The economic difference between the rich and the poor is so vast, that if you are making 10k+ a year you are very rich by a normal villager's perspective...the problem is unless you are living in a rural area, there are not many places for you to live unless you want to live other than the slums or in a wealthy neighborhood.
Of course this is just a generalization, but if you ever go to India, and truly experience it outside of the MNC bubble, you will see why something like this is needed.
-n00b
Re:Tata's riding a wave... (Score:5, Interesting)
The funny thing is, it seems like there's not really a comparable alternative in some Western countries.
Tata is pitching their homes at about 1.5 times their target market's annual income. Relatively speaking, it looks like that would place these at about £35,000 in the UK. In comparison, the Ikea homes were placed at a minimum of three times the income of the target market, and more like 5 or 6 times in many cases.
Parent
Let him ride it . . . (Score:3)
. . . Ratan Tata will soon be known as the William Levitt of India: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Levitt [wikipedia.org]. Maybe he thought up that idea during his Harvard days.
He is making money for himself, but he seems to be doing a lot of good for people, as well.
The world could do with a couple more of him.
I looked at the floor plans, and thought that it would be a great place to buy for vacations.
But, alas, the 3-D animation was slashdotted. So other Slashdotters seem to be thinking the same thing. And I
apartments or condos? (Score:2)
if it's for purchase with no monthly rent (excluding HOA fees), then it's a condo.
but yea, considering the various disasters that have happened in India in regards to shotty construction and buildings collapsing... I'm afraid that those would live in them might as well as say "Ta ta" to life.
Is this actually cheap? (Score:5, Informative)
These apartments are extremely tiny at only 283 - 465 sq ft and for $7,800 - $13,400 that isn't really that cheap as it is around $28-29 per sq ft. The condo I own in Houston only cost me $43 per sq ft and they are now going for much cheaper than that after the economy meltdown.
Re:Is this actually cheap? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes... but 100km outside of Mumbai isn't Manhattan.
Parent
Middle Class in India (Score:5, Insightful)
70% of the country's 1.2 billion people live on 1/20 as much.
True, but not relevant.
This is aimed at the middle class in India, which numbers 50 - 100 million now and is expected to grow rapidly [4hoteliers.com] :
India's middle class is expected to swell almost 12-fold from its size of 50 million people to over 583 million - some 41% of the population.
Let's see, 10 million homes for $ 10K each is $ 100 billion USD - a market worth going after.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's right a country with 1.2 billion has no domestic consumption/economy. They were all American jobs.
ever been to india? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry to sound snooty, but that's my gut reaction to the "this is unsafe!" comments. Unsafe by American/European standards, probably. Unsafe compared to Indian options? Ha.
Some photos of life in Delhi (a bit less "European" than Mumbai), including the inside of a couple homes, here [blogspot.com]. (Disclosure: that's a link to my old travel blog.)
We should praise improvement, not demand perfection.
Re:ever been to india? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Where to put my giant LCD TV? (Score:2)
Hey, I can still mount my 62-inch LCD TV on the ceiling above the bed, right? Turn it off and it doubles as a mirror, eh?
How do you buy an apartment? (Score:3)
I'm confused by the terminology. Around here (southern USA) an apartment is something you rent. A Condominium is like an apartment in that it is on managed grounds but you can "buy" them. I say "buy" in quotes because the concept of buying half of a building attached to someone else's half does not sound like anything I would want to buy.
Anyway, what are they talking about?
Re:How do you buy an apartment? (Score:5, Informative)
Should have put this in my first reply. I know that I have seen 'apartment' used as something you buy in NY-based sitcoms (e.g. "Seinfeld").
Also, the first paragraph on Wikipedia's entry says that it can be either (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartment):
An apartment is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building. Apartments may be owned (by an owner/occupier) or rented (by tenants).
Parent
Re:How do you buy an apartment? (Score:4, Informative)
"Condo" really refers to the legal arrangement, although it has taken on a meaning of "apartment that you own" in recent years. Condominium laws didn't even come into effect in the US until the 60s really. In cities with older dense urban housing stock, older apartment buildings are still often owned through a cooperative [wikipedia.org] instead.
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Tiny? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Anonymous Coward: kdawson sucks, he needs to be fired.
kdawson: I don't care!
Anonymous Coward: from a canon, into the sun.
kdawson: (gulp!)
Re:THIS IS NOT NEWS FOR NERDS!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
I dunno. The ability to build mass housing for cheap is rather interesting. Why not take the plans, modify them slightly, and then have low-cost housing in North America? Habitats for Humanity would probably do quite well in this situation. There's more than just tech nerds out there, remember. There's also social sciences nerds.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Why not take the plans, modify them slightly, and then have low-cost housing in North America?"
I take you have never been involved in the zoning approval process for a low income housing project in the US. If you had been you would learn how much hysteria can be generated by the thought that the value of a middle class American's house could be dented by the presence of a less expensive alternative.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Deflation at it's best or worst (sadly) (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, employed workers in the West (the US at least) have been creating shoddy, overpriced products that no one wants for some time now:
Giant cars that get horrid gas mileage; doctors and prescription drugs that routinely cause more harm than good; tiny, uninsulated, overcrowded apartments that cost more than houses; buggy, barely-functional software; industries that are less energy-efficient than those in developing countries; financial services that border on fraud.
And that's not even including any of the horrid government "services" which employ nearly half of everyone and no one has any say in even purchasing: prisons for substance abusers; welfare for immigrants; jack-booted thugs who murder Americans; spooks who spy on us; soldiers who waste trillions of dollars making us less secure; and of course generous hand-outs for banks and wealthy corporations.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ever lived in a shipping container? I've worked out of one, converted into a temporary work space. They're hotter than hell in the summer (think solar heated oven) and bad in the winter too.
Note that I'm intentionally ignoring the pretty pictures in the linked to page