Tata Building $7,800 Apartments in Mumbai

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.

Is this actually cheap?

[calc]

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:very cheap + little material =unsafe

[TrisexualPuppy]

Most golfcarts HAVE four wheels you moron

Re:Don't subvert the architect's vision

[characterZer0]

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.)

Re:How do you buy an apartment?

[mattack2]

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).

Re:How do you buy an apartment?

[doktor-hladnjak]

From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

A condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate (usually of an apartment house) is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights associated with the individual ownership and controlled by the association of owners that jointly represent ownership of the whole piece. Colloquially, the term is often used to refer to the unit itself in place of the word "apartment". A condominium may be simply defined as an "apartment" that the tenant "owns" as opposed to rents.

The difference between a condominium and an apartment is purely legal: there is no way to know a condo from an apartment simply by looking at or visiting the building. What defines a condominium is the form of ownership. The same building developed as a condominium (and sold as individual units to different owners) could actually be built someplace else as an apartment building (the developers would retain onwnership and rent individual units to different tenants).

"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.

Re:very cheap + little material =unsafe

[Ian Alexander]

Dude, have you ever been to India? You're likely to hit ANYTHING in a city. Cars, people on foot, people bicycles, rickshaws (human-powered and automotive),and Shiva forbid a cow wanders into the road at the wrong moment.

Indian traffic is a good example of anarchy in practice.

Not Ghetto

[sanman2]

In India, people who earn $5000/yr are not ghetto, they're lower-income lower middle class. They're not on welfare (there is no welfare), they're employed.

Re:very cheap + little material =unsafe

[Tomfrh]

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.

Re:THEY TRIED THIS

[CAIMLAS]

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 too large, they'll be able to blend properly with the surrounding area buildings as people become more affluent.

The projects in the US failed because they were the spear tip of a political movement (ie, politicians did it) to bid for their own election. "Here's a house if you vote for us" kind of thing. No foresight was given for things like jobs or infrastructure - and there were a lot of other things fundamentally wrong about the 1950s era planning mentality.