I read an excellent post by Ajay Shah recently that questioned the policy wisdom of emphasising house ownership over rental housing. His concerns stem from hampering the mobility of labour and worsening risk diversification in the portfolios of households. While these concerns are true for most households, they are much exacerbated in the case of low-income families.
Take a typical worker employed in the construction sector earning, say Rs. 4500 per month. He faces two significant risks to income: accident/health shock resulting in temporary or permanent disability and unemployment resulting in temporary or long-term loss of income. Given this inherent income volatility, the obligation of a fixed Equated Monthly Installment (EMI) over a long period of time to finance the house purchase seems unsuitable. While capital appreciation as a motive might make sense for households with more stable incomes and low exposure to real-estate otherwise, the volatility in this case becomes a real stumbling block. A rental contract provides the much-needed flexibility to reduce housing expenditure when shocks occur and also the ability to migrate when the nature of economic opportunities shift, as they are likely to over a period of time. My colleagues have an interesting paper that simulates household wealth under ownership housing and rental housing that makes this point clearer.
Above excerpt is cross-posted from Bindu Ananth’s latest column on the Forbes India Blog. Click here to read the full post.
