By Manav Khaire and Shishir Kumar Jha on October 26th 2021
This article attempts to capture the story of an informally employed low-income household who, with the help of informal financial agents, successfully navigated the informal-formal space of housing finance to buy the house of their choice. The article starts with contextualising the accessibility and affordability constraints for housing finance faced by low-income households. Following this, we discuss a case study of an informally employed home loan borrower, explaining the negotiations playing at the cusp of the informal-formal. Lastly, we deliberate upon the roles of lending institutions, specifically during the COVID-19 crisis and the financial recovery of the home loan industry.
By Shamindra Nath Roy on April 1st 2021
The private residential real estate market in urban India is diverse, and housing typologies vary within and across geographies. This is the third in a series of data pieces highlighting some of the characteristics of private real estate market in India across selected geographies between 2009-2019, based on data provided by Liases Foras, India’s only non-broking real-estate research company.
By Shamindra Nath Roy on March 25th 2021
The private residential real estate market in urban India is diverse, and housing typologies vary within and across geographies. This is the second in a series of data pieces highlighting some of the characteristics of private real estate market in India across selected geographies between 2009-2019, based on data provided by Liases Foras, India’s only non-broking real-estate research company.
By M Mohsin Alam Bhat and Asaf Ali Lone on March 2nd 2021
Discrimination in rental housing shapes our cities, demarcating what spaces are ‘open’ or ‘closed’ to some citizens. Interviewees told researchers of the Housing Discrimination Project that it makes Muslims feel safe only in some areas, unwelcome elsewhere.
By Rohit Lahoti on February 23rd 2021
This essay is the housing story of Ahmed (pseudonym) and his family, as it parallels housing-policy shifts in India, particularly in Mumbai. The timeframe for this story intersects with the three decades of economic liberalization and policy deregulation in India. As this personal trajectory unfolds in Dharavi, one of the biggest slums in Asia, it raises simultaneous questions and issues when linked to the social-housing evolution at the municipal and national scale. The story is broadly divided into three phases from 1990s to 2020, toggling between Ahmed’s personal journey and the political transformations occurring at different scales.