Tata Building $7,800 Apartments in Mumbai

theodp writes "What do you do for an encore after you've shown the world it's possible to build a $2,000 car? Ratan Tata, head of India's giant Tata conglomerate, now plans to build, 30 miles outside of Mumbai, 1,200 tiny apartments that will sell for $7,800 to $13,400 each. Sure, they're small (floor plans), but keep in mind that you can pay a quarter of a million bucks for a 250-sq.-ft. studio in the East Village. Time reports that Tata has had to beef up security to handle the rush of buyers who want to plunk down their $200 deposits (yes, that's two hundred dollars!). Who would've thought you could make IKEA homes look pricey?" The Businessweek.com article says that the apartments are aimed at someone making $6,000 to $10,000 per year (Time says $5,000). In Mumbai, a call center operator with 10 to 20 years of experience barely qualifies at $6,400 annually. 70% of the country's 1.2 billion people live on 1/20 as much.

Comments

Re:very cheap + little material =unsafe

[jez9999]

Don't worry, though; you should be OK in one. It's India, so you're much more likely to hit a pedestrian than another car.

Don't subvert the architect's vision

[hansamurai]

We don't want another Cortlandt Homes incident.

Darnit, I got excited

[scubamage]

For a second I read that as Dubai and was trying to fish out my credit card. Mumbai I could care less about.

Re:You can get a house for that

[dunkelfalke]

if the houses there all look like the one in the picture then i'd rather take a tata flat.

But that's not ALL!

[oldhack]

We'll throw in the crackhouse on the left ABSOLUTELY FREE!

Re:not compared to the replacement

[arcsimm]

What are you doing on Slashdot? I know that we love car analogies, but Nanobusas and Fisker Karma double-entendres require a degree of car-guy knowledge not usually found in computer geeks.

Then again, I'm here too.

Tiny?

[lixee]

Tiny? They're bigger than my place, you insensitive clod! Ah...the joys of grad school...