you know I can still recall the shudder of an army truck outside our door every 1 to 2 years it was Agra one day Wellington the next and palampur after that you see my dad was in the Army so I've grown up in over 10 cities that is 10 different homes 10 front doors and also 10 goodbyes I'd watched my dad methodically take items off a horrible inventory list that he'd make every single time while my mother neatly TG in the memory she wanted to carry with her you see as a kid I found it very exciting a new city was just a new adventure but it never really occurred to me how lucky we were because unlike the rest of India we didn't pay rent or Scramble for a landlord's approval we had ate from government quarters a protective bubble of guaranteed housing outside those Gates though a different reality was unfolding you know for Millions home is a Perpetual scramble between 2019 and 2024 alone house prices in India's top 10 cities have sold by 88% homes have now morphed into a luxury that very few can afford you know on average humans spend around 90,000 hours indoors in their lifetime our home is our checkpoint we begin and end every single day there but if these walls vanish at the landlord's whim or are never within our financial reach how are we supposed to even anchor ourselves see for the last few Generations one directive was hammered into all of us study hard get a job buy your own place house ownership was literally the Pinnacle of success now with all these new housing projects constantly being developed it should be an easy path to achieving this no let me tell you another stat here you know in Indian cities 11 million houses sit empty that's enough to house an entire nation like Switzerland meanwhile 47.3 million families endure slums or unlit underpasses sleeping in tents or under TBS this is the Paradox we're dealing with right now and it's important for us to understand it just to be sure what our role is going to be in this evolving crisis you know I used to think any individual who was able to save diligently would be able to afford a house but man when I looked at the numbers I saw a stock reality according to reports mumbai's price to income ratio is around 14.3 meaning you need 14 years of your entire salary food bills everything to buy a standard home to put this in perspective for New York it's 10.3 Berlin 9.1 and in New Delhi it's around 10.1 experts say anything above five is basically unaffordable even the supposedly cheaper metros like Pune or Chennai hover around 5 to 7 forget buying a home out right let's say you decide to take a home loan to buy a house for that also you need to look at one metric called the Emi to income ratio so for a house to be affordable the ideal Emi to income ratio needs to be under 50% but if you look at the average Emi to income ratio in India it's around 61% with Mumbai being 116% and Delhi at 82% see I'll tell you what happened so during the lockdown people fled expensive rentals and went back home leaving all the landlords in a deficit of profits but the moment offices resumed a stampede back to City centers motivated the same landlords to higher rent prices and make up for all the lost time the result rents jumped so high that in Mumbai an average Junior employee might spend their entire salary just on a one bhk zero for savings or daily life essentially they have turned the housing market into a survival game this is absolute Madness you know what's crazier even for folks who can afford to rent a house the rules of rentals are literally changing day by day so just last month a lot of our team members moved to Bangalore and they were telling us how their landlords ask for their website before approving their rental application even when we were buying a house the Builder asked for our social profiles and this made me realize how how having a strong online presence has become so crucial not just for housing but for building trust in any aspect of life whether it's to landar a better job showcase your portfolio landar new client projects or even to buy a home your digital identity is the first impression you make on someone but here's the thing creating and maintaining a website sounds overwhelming right well I'd like to introduce you to u u is a One-Stop enterprise resource planning platform for all your business needs and one of my favorite applications is their website builder thanks to Udo you can make a website within minutes using just four simple steps and start designing it immediately their AI can even suggest layouts and generate or refine your text based on your industry and goals you can drag and drop blocks add text about your business and add images or choose from odo's integrated stock image library unsplash and you know the best part you don't have to spend a dime for your website since the first Odo app is free forever no ads with with unlimited hosting and support you even get a custom domain free for a year so if you don't want to waste your time and take your business offerings to the next level check out Odo from the link in description below whether you're dealing with picky landlords or building your professional brand having your own website is becoming as essential as having a phone number and with Odo it's never been easier or more affordable to establish your online presence speaking of affordability let's get back to understanding why housing prices have skyrocketed see to understand this constantly developing housing crisis we need to look at the issue through three prominent lenses the theme unrelated but are interconnected in intricate ways FSI or floor space index could be the single biggest piece of invisible architecture shaping our skylines in Manhattan FSI goes up to 25 which means they Foster the potential for very tall vertical buildings in Mumbai the fs I is 1.3 in Prime zones stunting Supply as population floods in land prices inflate but fewer homes are developed so you see in the 1970s policy makers tried controlling density but it inadvertently skyrocketed land prices today maybe 500 families own 60% of prime land in Mumbai they can dribble out projects at inflated margins anytime some experts argue raising FSI by just 50% might slice housing cost by 30% but who profits from limiting floors politicians well-connected Builders and the 1% with large land Banks this artificial scarcity begets big bucks meanwhile the rest of us fight for fewer slices of a very expensive [Music] EA British economist John mayard ke warned about rentier capitalism which is basically an economic system where wealth is derived from the ownership ship or control of assets that generate rent it's basically valuing ownership over productive activities like manufacturing Innovation or labor in India's postco scenario we see it in real time so around then demand for houses had served by 72% in some metros and landlords smell blood tends for me to deposit 10 months rent up front abiding by random landlord rules of facing abrupt evictions if they disputed a rent High the has of truth if you won't pay there's probably an IT professional who will we have effectively crowned a new landlord class instead of Farmland they own two bhks in Prime locals instead of collecting grains they collect monthly efts some call it feudalism 2.0 you pay or you leave finally we have the elephant in the [Music] room did you know around 77% of Indian household wealth is real estate to put this in perspective in the US it's just 44% the mismatch is epic and implies a very dark truth black money often runs the show Indians often store wealth and property many times using unaccounted money it's so normalized that some sellers casually offer a black discount if you pay under the table and this leads to artificial inflation of prices as the ones who are capable of paying in Black are favored over those who prefer formal financing Additionally the tax revenue that is lost would have actually gone onto Aid housing projects but not in this case due to corruption further these house owners who bought the property using black money just lock up the houses and keep it stagnant a Property agent once told me you see those ghost departments they are piggy bangs for investors see if rent years are only 2 to 4% why even bother renting it out it's too much a hassle let the price appreciate you see here housing is not about shelter it's about reaping capital gains and circulating black money while ordinary folks are checked out of the equation back in 2008 the economic housing market crashed and caused a global economic meltdown the National Association of Realtors reported the worst month-to-month drop in existing home sales since they started keeping track in the late 90s China's housing market has been in the slump since 2019 19 and if we don't learn from past mistakes we are also going to be following the footsteps down a similar scary SP luckily just as there are cautionary tales to look at there are also great examples of problem solving that we have seen in other countries so back in the 1960s most singaporeans lived in overcrowded slums and squatter settlements recognizing their dire situation they launched the Housing and Development board the htb was tasked with systematically acquiring land at low cost and building or selling Flats at subsidized rates their operation model has proven to be extremely successful and today 80% of singaporeans live in htb Flats with over 90% of them owning it themselves which is actually one of the highest home ownership rates in the world it's not just Singapore we also have the example of Vietnam after World War I the socialist government launched a social housing program called red VNA they started building public housing units funded by a progressive tax system this commitment was strictly carried through even after World War II and their dedicated efforts paid huge dividends you know 25% of the vienes people rent from the city itself at below Market rates another 25% of them live in housing provided by limited profit associations these are organizations that operate under strict regulations and their involvement in the housing market ensures rent prices remain stable and best of all you need to look at Tokyo's Innovations when it comes to housing they have no high restrictions and minimal tap which basically means that that FSI is really high allowing tall buildings and they have streamlined or cut down the bureaucratic hurdles when it comes to construction projects making it easier for developers to innovate and you know the single family zones in Los Angeles or Sydney where wealthy Rich families occupy large acres of land for peaceful isolation in Tokyo these zones don't exist this allows for higher density housing to be built even in residential areas so when Tokyo's population sold inflation was kept in check as they had evolve their infrastructure to account for all the changes now you might say that a lot of these Solutions don't apply to India because India literally dwars these places in scale but the principle here that's treating housing as vital infrastructure rather than a pure commodity applies universally if you want to learn how to make videos like the one you're watching right now let me give you a glimpse of what it takes [Music] [Music] are we good to go yeah okay okay [Music] are we good to go as you saw it takes an army of people to create and deliver a well produced video to you guys and people who can do this are in high demand with the right training you can turn video making that's from the concept to the final cut into a high income skill with a video Mastery Program in less than 3 months most of the folks you see here are from a video editing school so if you're a student a job Seeker a content creator or just somebody who wants to get into the field of video making and video editing our program is the right place for you to start it will take you from absolute Basics and core video editing skills storytelling production motion design and gen to a hireable editor or video producer you know we have trained over 3,000 editors many of whom are working with some of the top creators and companies so if you're somebody who wants to learn the skill of video editing producing videos or are just curious about our program sign up for the free master class that we are hosting link is in the description below see if a small city state can transform slums into stable homes so can a subcontinent if it harnesses resources and crushes corruption now I'm no expert but we must address land ownership itself you see if we keep treating land as a commodity for speculation we will remain trapped but if communities coops or the government hold land and Lead it to occupants this speculation fizzes that is exactly how Vienna partially keeps prices stable the other thing we could do is enforce vacancy taxes on empty properties pushing owners to either rent or sell because honestly a vacant highrise is an insult to a family living under a plastic sheet see if FSI can't be increased by 50% efforts must go into detailed and transparent breakdown of the city's infrastructure we need to do this so we can arrive at the most optimal number that will fight against this crisis and finally putting in place organizations with limited profits and aiding buyers who don't partake in Black money practices similar to how Vienna does might alleviate some of the strain from the market if all of these potential Solutions and other efforts shouted out by the experts in the field are implemented maybe we can effectively provide the first and foremost basic need that's shelter again I come back to the difference between a house and a home we say home is where the heart is often implying a portable nature to the idea of a home and yet as one gets older we somehow mimic the traits of a tree we desire to plant Our Roots deep into a stable ground and grow out leaves and fruits in that very spot for the rest of our life and this it's everyone's right [Music] [Music]