Hyderabad, January 24: It’s the owners of residential properties in the Old City who are rejoicing these days. With no new constructions underway to satiate the ever-spiraling demand for space in this part of town, rentals here have shot through the roof, say observers.
For instance, a 2BHK (bedroom-hall-kitchen) house available for a modest Rs 5,000-Rs 7,000 (per month) until a year ago is now up for grabs for nothing less than Rs 10,000-Rs 12,000, a price tenants usually associate with new city areas. And these rents are not for sprawling premises but modest dwellings measuring 700-750 square feet in size.
According to locals, the list of areas ringing in maximum moolah through rentals includes Goshamahal, Khilwat, Begum Bazaar, Noor Khan Bazaar, Moghulpura and so on. In fact, owners of even one-bedroom houses dotting the peripheries of Charminar (Alijah Kotla, Ghazi Bazaar, Panjesha, Chowk etc) are now quoting rents in the Rs 5,000-Rs 6,000 range, say residents. Reason? The surge in demand from the migrant population flooding this area for employment.
“Groups of workers here pick up houses and share the rent. This trend, though in place for a long time, has seen a rise in recent times. That has given property owners a huge advantage,” said Jaffer Ali, a silver merchant from the Old City though maintaining that it’s the lack of enough construction activity over the last few years, which has primarily led to this steep rise in rentals.
Predictably, businessmen who were until sometime ago paying a pittance to live in the ‘safe’ surroundings of asal Hyderabad are now forced to shell out as much as Rs 12,000 per month.
“Though they have the money, there are no new apartments being built that they can move into. And because the activities of this community are restricted to this part of town and they feel at home here, they have no choice but to pay a high rental,” said Vishal Doshi, a developer operating in the Old City.
Apart from the residential sector even commercial establishments have seen a jump in rates of late, again for the same reason. The going rate of ‘pagdis’ (money a tenant pays to an owner depending on the current valuation of the property) is to the tune of Rs 50 to 60 lakh.
“It is in fact the highest on the Gulzar Houz-Charminar stretch that houses all jewellery stores,” said Rajesh Agarwal, a trader from the area adding, “In and around Pathergatti (the cloth-merchant’s zone) the prices are slightly lower. But it is still not less than Rs 30-40 lakh.”
Following the footsteps of their predecessors, the few new commercial spaces being built too are quoting high rates, say denizens. A case in point is a certain building coming up near Charminar where small outlets in commercial complexes are being leased out for a monthly rental of as much as Rs 20,000, say sources.
“This pricing is almost on par with the rates possibly prevailing in Banjara Hills,” said a realtor from the ‘new’ city.
A building is coming up near Charminar where small outlets in commercial complexes are being leased out for a monthly rental of as much as Rs 20,000.
Courtesy: TOI