Home truths in our ooru
Those looking to rent homes in the city are cribbing about the high deposit amounts and rentals that landlords demand from young professionals.
Bengaluru is certified as a costly city where home owners ask for higher rental deposits. Students, locals and migrants often feel powerless and feel the rental amounts are exorbitant. With five per cent increase in rental and deposit amounts every year, tenants are finding it difficult to rent apartments that fall within their budgets.
Mousumi Mishra from Orissa, working in an MNC, says how she paid the deposit amount demanded by her land-lord. “Brokers ask for one month rent as brokerage charge and offer you a quite decent place. In addition the requisite deposit amount demanded by landlords amounts to more than half of my salary and my per annum income. My landlord asked for rS 2.5 Lakhs for which we used my brother’s FD amount,”she says.
While towering IT buildings in the city, project an impression of IT professionals earning earning five figure salaries, that may not always be the case. Yashpal Kasotiya, French analyst in an MNC says “I could successfully find a nest for myself but many of my friends are finding it difficult to rent a home of their choice. I also hear about landlords who do not provide the amenities that they promised earlier. Also when tenants are vacating the property, baseless reasons are given to them and money is then deducted from the deposits.”
A minimum of two-three months’ rent as security deposit is mandatory in most Indian cities. In Bengaluru, the deposit is more than three months. This could run into six digits making it difficult for tenants to cough up such high amounts to pay.
Sanjay, an MNC employee from Hyderabad says, “When I was planning to shifting to Bengaluru to work in our head office, my friends told me not to to accept the offer. They revealed their list of expenses — a large chunk of which went into monthly rentals — plus the cost of living and going out was so high, that it was not worth it. At the end of the month, most of them were borrowing money to make ends meet. So I decided not to move to Bengaluru.”
Looks like tenant’s woes continue in namma ooru.