By Manish Agarwal

Congested city roads, traffic jams, pollution and on the top of all, constantly growing demographic pattern has given rise to a new lifestyle in urban areas. People have started preferring small flats or apartments owing to various reasons in comparison with old traditional bungalows or mansions.

New luxuries like swimming pool, shopping complex, ultra modern gymnasium, billiards and table tennis, party area, internet broadband connection, etc., have drawn a wide attention in the past few years. Gone are the days when people used to ask for ancient family houses and quarrel over boundary encroachment or right of passage with neighbors. This new modern phase of real estate development in the cities has witnessed a broad concern over the rent-outs or tailor-made apartments.

Developers are constantly thinking out of box to bring out a way which could maximize the comfort level while reducing the troubles of people on the flip side in cities. For those who need to commute on poor infrastructure through jam-packed peak traffic hours and who are unable to afford a house (which probably requires tons of money ) in a city have found an easy choice in the form of apartments to support their living.

Not only rent-outs, owning a small flat is not that far off, when it can easily be financed based on simple instalments through banks. People these days invest more on education and healthy living while focusing less on house area. One can easily find a family of five adjusted in a one or two bedroom flat ranging from Rs. 4000 – Rs. 20,000 or more. Migrants from different places who come to cities in the search of work accommodate themselves in such localities. Moreover, in today’s time of increased cost of construction, buying land and then constructing a house is costly and time consuming. Major cities across India are witnessing this architectural evolution- wherein bungalows on the block are paving the way for multistory buildings.

Pushers

Some of the factors that vociferously call for apartment culture:

• New initiatives like the construction of a metro in cities like New Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, suburban railway in the areas like Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Delhi, Pune, Kolkata and Bus Rapid Transit System  taken by the various state governments to improve the public transport systems in cities has raised the interest among people in the surrounding areas so as to save the commutation time. But getting a  house within such premises is not only expensive for a common man, in fact developers have also stopped constructing single houses in order to have room for the growing population.

 

• The security angle, rules the minds of investors. Buying a huge house by investing loads of money, hiring a guard for safety and then living your life in isolation has become a way too old fashioned. City dwellers now think more about creating social relations with people around. Parties, small trips and frequent visits at each others place has become easier to fabricate a strong societal life.

 

• The other major factor that boosted apartment culture in metropolitans is the attitude of people of killing even a single possibility of brawls and tensions  in the family over the land issue or the lawsuits with relatives or tenants who refuse to vacate the house. Leaving every work aside and keeping oneself busy in guarding court rounds to and fro, has become a thumping headache for estate maintainers.

 

• Continued rise in the urban population has also created hurdles in the housing aspirations of millions of people. They are ready to forgo their dream of owning a villa or bungalow and have started settling down in apartments due to lower prices. In the phase of inflation in the country, everything you aspire for has become so costly that it’s hard for realty market also to maintain its consistency in the price range. Skyrocketing prices of the mansions have also remained the premium factor for people to sell off their houses on account of making profits.

 

• Above all, the newer and better facilities offered in the luxurious apartments are not easy to let go. Not just in huge mansions, a buyer can also maintain a high-class lifestyle in an apartment where amenities ranging from temperature-controlled pool, the Cardio aerobic center to spa, CCTV surveillance, guard communication system, round-the-clock electricity supply are available. In a nutshell, everything a person needs becomes reachable in a minutes distance. Developers have designed societies in a way, that has brought everything in the close proximity of residence.

(The Author is the Managing Director of Satya Group)