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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.
These apartments are extremely tiny at only 283 - 465 sq ft and for $7,800 - $13,400 that isn't really that cheap as it is around $28-29 per sq ft. The condo I own in Houston only cost me $43 per sq ft and they are now going for much cheaper than that after the economy meltdown.
Good thing that the Cortland Homes incident never actually happened.
(For those who do not know, it was a quasi-plausible scenario followed by non-plausible reactions from an Ayn Rand book.)
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Should have put this in my first reply. I know that I have seen 'apartment' used as something you buy in NY-based sitcoms (e.g. "Seinfeld").
Also, the first paragraph on Wikipedia's entry says that it can be either (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartment):
An apartment is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building. Apartments may be owned (by an owner/occupier) or rented (by tenants).
Dude, have you ever been to India? You're likely to hit ANYTHING in a city. Cars, people on foot, people bicycles, rickshaws (human-powered and automotive),and Shiva forbid a cow wanders into the road at the wrong moment.
Indian traffic is a good example of anarchy in practice.
The International Building Code is an American building code. Americans have this strange habit of calling their stuff "world" or "international", e.g. World Series Baseball.
India has their own building code.