Maker of world's cheapest car is going to sell $7,800 apartments in India
According to PayScale, a call center employee in India with 10-20 years experience makes about $6,400 a year. These folks might be able to afford one of the 1,000 tiny apartments being made by Tata, the company that makes the $2,200 car.
From Business Week:
Luxury flats in Mumbai can cost more than ones in Manhattan. But these apartments won’t be luxurious. The Tata apartments will be built on 67 acres in Boisar, an industrial area where many lower-wage commuters already rent. These apartments will be absolutely tiny. The carpeted area of the smallest units will be 218 square feet, too small even for most Manhattanites. The largest units would be about 373 square feet (Click here to see the floor plans). Can you imagine squeezing a family into one of these units? The community would have its own garden, post office, meeting hall, schools, and hospital.Tata's Nano Home: Company behind world's cheapest car to sell $7,800 apartments
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Even the smallest one is still bigger than my last apartment in Japan.
This isn't so bad; I've lived in much smaller places, and my current apartment, which seems luxuriously big, is about twice that size. It probably only seems too small to people from spacious countries like America, I think.
Here come the Zaibatzus (sp?) from Neuromancer.
What a coincidence. Last night I watched the 30 Days episode with the American whose job was outsourced and given to Tata. He went to India and stayed with a family who had a son that was a call center manager and whose wife wanted to work in a call center. The American worked at a call center during his stay.
It's on HULU. Can't recommend it enough.
Sold!
I'm in the midst of apartment hunting now, and hate it. If I could find an apartment with a floor plan like that in an area I wanted and it was on a well up kept property, I'd jump on it! Of course, I live alone, more than one person in one of those wouldn't be nearly so fun.
Just anote, Tata is a major corporation with it's tentacles in many industries, not just "Tata Motors" and this apartment effort.
From their website:
information systems and communications
engineering
materials
services
energy
consumer products
chemicals
If hypothetically someone got a telecommuting job that didn't require frequent office visits, and have nothing to hold them to one location, buying one of these sounds like a good investment. Think of how much you'd save living in one with the salary of an average freelancer from America.
Add me to the list of the people who aren't taken aback by this.
There's something very, very Walden-esque about a reasonable size dwelling that you own (again, own).
I'd love to buy one instead of paying rent, actually build equity. Get a system where you buy it, pay a reasonable mortgage over 5 years (basically the same as a car) and if/when you get a family or want a bigger place, sell it to someone else for a small profit and the cycle repeats for them. I'm 29. I don't think I'm going to have need for a family style dwelling for 4 years or so.
Sticking with the Walden concept, American homes are essentially castles. They're huge. And they're not cheap. You pretty much have two options: Buy a home or Rent an apartment.
There is totally room in between, instead of just pissing your money away on rent.
Something's not right about the implicit comparisons in Business Week. There's no way these are located near where "luxury flats cost more than they do in Manhattan." Apartments this small in Manhattan are unusual but certainly not unheard of, and in the most expensive neighborhoods they'd still be 300k.
Tata has also many "dodgy" or at least questionable IT deals.
In Mexico they won a huge contract and the president's cousin-in-law ( his wife's cousin ) is Tata's representative.
http://experiencia.indigobrainmedia.com/web/reporte/edicion133/#6/1 (link is in spanish)
In Chile there was a similar mega-deal and some top executives were forced to resign.
http://www.againstcorruption.org/briberycase.asp?id=942
Quick! Somebody shut these guys down before they compromise the housing and transportation markets in India! Next they'll be making free lunch machines and ruining our agricultural sector! (Nod to Cory.)
That's about the size of affordable housing in Spain at the moment - specially for young people. I lived with my family of four in Barcelona in a 400 sq ft house, paying 1200eu per month ($1600). I used to joke that to play 'peek-a-boo' all you had to do was stand at the entrance and look around.
I had a decent place - most young people nowadays will be hard pressed to find such good deals - unless of course they share accommodation to meet costs.
The housing situation has been blamed for the low natality rate in Spain (because people stay living with their parents instead of moving out - can't afford it), and of course - the bursting of the speculation bubble in real estate. It's all linked, in the end...
Apart from the fact that it's gigantic compared to my last home in Japan, it's a good deal.
I'd totally buy it, if something was available in Germany. Buying an appartment/house here means you're in debt for the next 20 or 30 years and you have to pay huge fees for real estate agents, whose only duty is opening the houses for viewing.
Affordable housing and affordable cars, dear god, what is the world coming to...
That's, like, 70 m², right ? The equivalent in Paris wold cost you about 6/800 000 €. Anywhere in France, actually. So I can't wait for that kind of prices here...but I doubt it's ever gonna happen.
PKP:
Much less than 70 m^2. 35 and 20 m^2. The bigger is more or less the size of the place I am living now. If you have enough shelves, it is not small. I like the idea of living inside a mitochondria-like place.
guidodavid: seconded. my place has appr. 37 sqm and it's plenty of space for one person. it's actually the biggest apartment i've rented so far.
@ #3: >Here come the Zaibatzus (sp?) from Neuromancer.
...or from actual 20th century japan, where gibson got the idea in the first place.
This is so Eastern Bloc. I was raised in Poland in 37 sq m. with my mom, dad and sister. It was really bad - no privacy, no space, no dreams.
The toughest thing was not the size of the unit as a number of units within the small space - the blocks were pretty big and set one of top of another:
http://nowej.hucie.w.interia.pl/tysiaclecia-1.html
It was all part of utopia vision of happiness and well being for the masses, and it may not even look bad from some angles. But believe me, it was like a housing project, with people's dreams squashed by the concrete.
was it so small you had to sleep in the oven a la Hedwig?
FSM:
Granted. For four people this would be unbearable. However, it beats 5 people sleeping in the same room, in bunks.
GuidoDavid: Yes, I actually have been to Mumbai last year and the 40 sq m is a dream for at least 6 million people there - the slum.
Think "trailer," single wide, in the 30 to 40 foot range, and then look for a trailer park in your region. You'll realize that some American families are currently living in similarly sized spaces.
It would be nice to have such a thing here in vancouver- especially at that price- or even and equivalent. Instead that size exists only downtown, where they can still stick you for $300 000
get a bunch of impoverished friends together, get a co-mortgage, convert a large house into a dozen flops and go for it. The battle with city government zoning and public need can ultimately only end in the public winning.
Given enough storage spaces, I could live in a space that small ;^)
(Actually, if I could just get my brain around shedding most of my older computers I could do OK, except for books... The unit would have to be literally lined with book shelves, floor to ceiling, wall-to-wall... That would be nice. Maybe a shed in the garden is what I need, like this one, only a bit bigger...)
http://www.shedblog.co.uk/
FSM: Here that would be a dream for lots of people too. Slums are almost everywhere, sadly, and are normal and expected for your children in lots of different societies. And the population keeps growing. Seems desperate situation :(.
If they built some of these downtown, homeless folks would call them palatial. They'd settle for the Japanese standard: one mat to lay down on, and a half a mat to stand up in...
Think I'd go for a murphy bed, sofa bed or futon, plus lots of shelves and wall storage. Definitely do-able for two, survivable for 4...and if you could conjoin 2, that's a cheap teeny suite for 4.
Did you notice that open space in the development is at 70%? If that's green-space and meeting/play areas, that would help a lot. Hope it's not just parking and roads!
Those apts seem pretty nice to me, too. I'm *renting* a place in LA for 11,000/yr...and it's just one room, efficiency kitchen + bath, and would fit neatly and easily inside the smallest of their apts.
"A call center employee with 10-20 years experience" ??
Indian call centers have been around for less than a decade!!
#29 / REXDUDE - it is just possible that Indians have been using telephones to conduct domestic business to consumer service functions for themselves, perhaps for longer than Western companies have been off-shoring such functions. Just a thought.
Note whats going on with the toilets!!!!!
see how the door opens over the toilet on the floor plans- thats becouse it doesnt have a sit down toilet. you squat over a whole in the floor.
Most toilets in India are squat toilets. They work just fine.
the small version needs the kitchen and bedroom swapped over.
and I have built longterm student accomodation with 19m2 (inc ensuite/shower) + communal kitchen. 19m2 is a small shipping container size.
Antinous revealed:
Note to self - pack less reading material if I ever travel to India...
You're not supposed to compare prices with those in New York, or other rich developed countries. Compare prices to poor developing countries. Like mine. 15 years ago, low cost houses built by the govt costs 10% less than that.
Of course that was 15 years ago, and we are now slightly less poor. But I suspect those houses are not so cheap as you think, when compared to other houses in India.