ITs Looting !

Bangalore city may not have sky scrapers , but if you plot a graph of
the increase in property prices over the last few years you will surely get
huge sky scrappers.
Same is the case with house rents , Bangalore house owners are ones who
have made most of the 'IT' boom , whether IT really boomed or not for us poor techies who came into the scene late , the rents have certainly boomed.
There is an increase of 50 % over the normal rates if a house
owner comes to know that his prospective tenant is an IT guy ! Also a min of 10 rent advance to it ... Thats literally the ground reality
in the IT capital.

Everyone blames IT guys for the increase in rent ! What will we poor
non-IT guys do they always ask/tell me . his was one complaint which we
keep hearing again and again. But I would say its not really fair to
blame IT ppl for the increase. this increase happnes because of the
perception that these guys earn a lot and hence wont mind paying.
A couple of years back a few friends of mine were hunting for a house
in B'lore and they saw a 2 bedroom house for which the previous tenants
had paid 5k per month. This guy met my friends and told them that rent
would be 7500 ! They were shocked as the guy was suggesting 50 %
increase , when asked why such a huge hike . The owner seemed surprised
that these guys were making noise for a small inc ; "you are making a
lot of money, right?" he asked. "I dont think the increase is huge for
ppl of your standards", he continued. Then my friend asked him "How
much do you think I earn in a month?" , the owner smiled and said he is
not very good at guessing these things and siad it was common knowledge
that software guys make a lot of money compared to men like him. Upon
further prompting , he said he will hazard a guess and added that he
was just making a conservative guess "Maybe 1 or maybe 2 Lacs?"
My friends were shocked and told him they make 10-15 % of the amount.
he guy wouldn't believe it , no way he kept repeating , I always read
about techies getting shares and being millionares ...
That seems to be the general perception , and the reason for this huge
increase in house rents in some areas of B'lore generally preffered by
software guys.
Another big reason for the increase in rents is the stupidity of ppl of
our ilk , there are some ppl who pay whatever is asked without checking
the general trend and the rates in that area , when one guy starts
paying others are expected to follow the suit and then automatically
the rent in that area increases. The reason why some pay is that they
usually take a house for rent as group of 4-6 , since the rent is
divided between them an increase of 1000 means just an inc of 200 to
each one so they dont mind.
Also the owners just jack up the rent so that even if ppl negotiate
they get a big increase over previous rates.
A friend of mine was looking for 3 bedroom house in Koramangla ,B'lore.
After seeing an ad in papers he called up the house owner.
This is what happened.
my Friend: "I heard you have a house in Koramangla , im interested , is
it available"
the Owner : "Actually a few people have come and seen it , but it is
avaiable as of now , are you interested"
F :"I want to know more details , like the rent and facilities .."
O : "Where did you come to know about this house?"
F : "from my office bulletin board , there was an ad , but no rent was
mentioned , can you please tell me the rent"
O : "oh you work there ... , the rent is ... 15000 "
F : "WHAT 15000 .....!!!"
O : "Hmm 12000 (?) ..."
F : "WHAT 12000 !!!"
O : :"Ok , 10000 then..."
F : (sensing that his incredulous reactions were working ) "10000

?!!!"
O : "ya , i cant reduce below that"
F : "Its too much sir"
O : "Not really , there was a guy who was ready to pay 9500 , im sure
i will get someone for 10k"
F : "Best of luck sir , bye"

Acc to my friend the correct rates in that area would be around 8-9 k
mark but pretty soon it would touch 10k , coz some fool would think
owner wanted 12k and would negotiate for 10k. Sure enough , today 1 yr
down that lane you wont find a house of that size in that area for less
than 10k !!!

Another area where these owners make profit is the painting clause in
the agreement. An amount is specified in one corner of the agreement as
painting charges , it gets charged wherther you vacate after one year
as expected or much before (which happens most often than not , for IT
guys coz of job switches , onsites etc..) . Even if you vacate house
after just 2 months , though ther is someone ready to occupy the house
the same day you move out (thats the kind of demand ! ) still the owner
will charge you for painting , though he never does the painting is
another fact which never gets noticed.
Last month i vacated the house i was staying for last 1.5 yrs and moved
to a new place. We had never caused any roblem to the owner so we didnt
expect any hassles when we went to collect the advance . But it was not
to be , the guy who was always around to collect the rent , turned out
to be very busy when we wanted to get our advance (10 months rent )
back ! Atlast one month after i moved out we managed to get an
'appointment' with him . He cribbed a lot about not beinf able to find
a tenant since we had not given enough time and all then told us we
will have to pay for the painting or get the painting done ourselves.
The agreement had Rs 4000 approx as painting charges . He said that the
word aprrox was there and that by agreement we were supposed to take
care of painting. then he dropped the bomb by showing us some estimates
ranging from 10k to 8k. The cheapest option was 8k , so pay that.
Me n my roomie looked at each other with disbelief , "that sis 100 % inc
sir" , we protested, But the man would not budge after a long round of
negotiations and lot of talk about you big 'IT' guys , we small house
owners and all such things we settled for 1000 more than the orignial
4000 as we intended. Atlast he calculated the balance amount he had to give us and wrote it down and asked us to verify , i checked it and handed it to my roomie , whose eyes seemed to be glowing as he went thru the figures , after that he took charge and quickly counted the balance money (all in cash!) and asked to get moving ,we told bye to him and as soon as we stepped outsid my roomie burst into laughter and said the guy made a totalling mistake lets get out of sight before he realises and then we ran !!! That occasion GOD was on our side as the owner made
a calculation mistake and gave 1000 extra to us , so in effect we ended
up paying the same amount as we intended !!!

But not everytime u get that lucky , i shudder to think what will happen if
i have to vacate my current house . Its not the extra money that hurts
, its the tendency or that feeling there is nothing wrong in getting a few extra bucks from guys who earn a lot , which hurts ...
Dont know what name ppl keep fot this tendency , I call it looting !

Mind Matters

Dont know what to call it : sixth sense , ESP or just a set of coincidences , but it always happens to me during my Bus journeys to B'lore from my hometown.
Let me be more clear though im still confused , or in other words let me clearly expalin a confusing thing . Ok , Ok ... Well this is 'it' ... Almost twice a month I go home during weekend and when i travel back to B'lore by Bus , I always wake up when i reach near a particular place 8-10 Km from Outer edge of B'lore city on the (in)famous Hosur Road.
Now the most puzzling thing is that this particluar point on the highway is just near where my office is located. To put it more clear terms , I seem to wake up from sound sleep , when i reach a familiar strech on the road. My mind seems to sense the fact the surroundings are familiar and gives a signal for me to wake up.
Its really unbelievable , the power of human mind or is it Brain ?
Sample this , I saw this happen on 5 different trips to B'lore from my hometown , on all the occassions the time at which we reached this particular point was different , once it was @ 4:50 AM , then once at 5:25 and another occassion at 5:50 AM , still i woke up just when i reached this place on the Hosur Road , which is roughly near my office !!!
Discussed this with a lot of my frens , we had diff theories , one I liked the most was that I travel to office daily on a particular 10 Km strech and reach my office , so the pattern of the Road is imprinted in my mind and when it reaches that strech of the Road , it recognises it subconsciously and wakes me up coz I have to get down before the regular busstop . So unless i wake up i cant get down at a place near my flat , mind recognises this dire need and remains active and alerts me !
Somthing similar happens to me when i have to get early for some emergency , for eg if i keep Alarm clcok for 5:00 , i gen wake up at 4:55 or something in time to switch off the alarm !
How and Why ? Just dont know and Dont Mind ! Thats mind ...