Unreal estate

Jug Suraiya / TNN / Jan 20, 2007, 23:20 IST

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Land prices, in India at least, have gone not just through the roof but through the stratosphere, like a soaring PSLV space launch vehicle.

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Land prices, in India at least, have gone not just through the roof but through the stratosphere, like a soaring PSLV space launch vehicle.

Give or take a billion or two, it's been some 14 billion years in the making.
Around about then, a singularity a point as much smaller than the full stop at the end of that last sentence is, in turn, compared with the Earth exploded outwards like a super-compressed jack-in-the-box Boing! and where a millionth of a millionth of a moment ago there had been nothing, not even moments or millionths of moments, there was suddenly Time, and Space, and an unfolding narrative of interrelated particles, the subatomic conversation of a coalescent universe.

Then, about 4.5 billion years ago, swirling clouds of gas and vapour spiralled together to form the planet, like a bowl on a spinning potter's wheel. And some 1.5 billion years later, a mere finger-snap of time in the cosmic saga, the first creature crawled out of the primordial soup of the seas to make a wondrous discovery called land.
And that's when the real estate boom began. It wasn't called real estate then, of course. First had to come continents and, much later, countries and nations. And at last, real estate as we know it: the metamorphosis of mud into money.

The single biggest investment opportunity in 14 billion years. And the story of creation became a property deal. A very big deal it is, too, and getting bigger by the moment.
Land prices, in India at least, have gone not just through the roof but through the stratosphere, like a soaring PSLV space launch vehicle, except that unlike the latter real estate is unlikely to come crashing down to earth again.
People keep talking about the 'correction' that is inevitable. Land prices can't keep going up at this rate, they say. And they're right. Tomorrow's land prices can't go up at today's rate; they'll go up even faster.

And that holds true not just for the metros and the big towns, but for fly specks on the map like Zirakpur, or Panchkula. Like Whicherpur, and Panchwhatter? Never mind. If you can pronounce it, the chances are that you can't afford it already.
A single square yard of land in a south Delhi neighbourhood not in the super-posh Lutyens zone which would be even pricier, but in a fairly tony area like, say, Vasant Vihar would today go for about Rs 3 lakh.
Which means that, inch for inch, land in south Delhi (and south Mumbai, I'm told, is even more expensive) is more valuable than the paper currency, assuming notes of Rs 1,000 denomination, with which it is bought. So what's to do?
Print ever higher denomination notes and hope that their square inch purchasing power keeps up with the price of land? Or say to heck with such fiduciary niggly-noos and just do what Bengal's Marxists were doing in Singur and Nandigram and grab what you want to and we'll see about payment later?
Tempting option. But, regrettably, one that's available only to the sarkar and not to aam-janta like you and me. Basically what we have here is a classic supply-side problem.
As the population of India not to mention those outer suburbs known as the rest of the world burgeons, the inelastic supply of land won't be able to keep pace with the growing demand for a commodity which went out of production billions of years ago.
The sarkar is trying to solve the problem by going back to the original source of supply and has announced its plans to put an Indian on the Moon. And what better candidate than a Dilli broker who'll put up the enticing sign: DDA approved plots for sale hurry till stocks last!
And if the mythical Man on the Moon, old Chanda Mama, objects, kick the old codger out on his ass. And hope he doesn't go ratting to Mamata Banerjee.