While in life death is a fact, still, more often than not, people tend to avoid this reality during discussions. Well, this is not the lines of some venerable seer with long beard and wearing ‘rudrakshas’ around his neck, on some religious or spiritual channel feeding us with his lofty sermons. Without sounding too sanctimonious, the sight of departed souls, or someone soaked in blood, is hitting realty hard in the capital. Properties in close proximity to nursing homes, clinics and hospitals hardly find buyers – as well as tenants – even at lesser amounts compared to the prevailing market rates there.
Sharad Bhatia, a resident of Vivek Vihar, says, “I have been finding it very difficult to find a tenant for my first-floor house simply because it is next to a very popular nursing home. It is always full of patients and their relatives. Police also bring injured people there for emergency treatment. The result is that the entire road of our lane always remains choked with vehicles. Prospective tenants do visit our place when they look for some suitable accommodation. Later, when they see the chaotic situation in the neighbourhood and gory sight of patients thronging the nursing home, they politely say no to me.”
And, if you go to Green Park Extension, the fear of imminent always haunts the realty scene. As Green Park Extension is just opposite a cremation ground, it has had negative fallout on the properties. Anil Makhijani of Mak Realtors says: “When somebody in Green Park Extension contacts us for a tenant or a buyer for their property, they do not exert too much knowing fully well that their efforts would go in vain. I have observed several times that once a possible tenant or buyer visits the area, he never returns to us. If we pursue the matter, he only says that he is not at all ready to deal with that particular property. The reason is well known.”
Noted social worker and head of East Delhi-based Shaheed Bhagat Singh Sewa Dal, Jitender Singh Shunty, upbraided the double standards of some as they hardly miss an opportunity to complain to him for parking his institution’s ambulance vans (on free service) in front of their homes, and says: “Almost daily, some residents of Vivek Vihar and nearby colonies complain to me that we should not park our ambulances in front, nor even close to their homes. But when they themselves require such vans in an emergency and it reaches them late, then they say we could not provide the van on time.”
Anil Sharma, CMD of Amrapali group, says: “There is no doubt that the value of some properties takes a nosedive for various factors. While Metro line is proving to be a boon for lakhs of people in the capital and other parts of the NCR, there are several more properties which have lost out badly in terms of value as Metro stations or gigantic pillars have come up at a hand-shaking distance from them. It goes without saying that buyers and tenets avoid such properties even if they are available to them at far lesser rates than the norm in those areas.”
Realty watchers also say that while people are scared to occupy properties near hospitals and burial grounds, they are equally wary of living close to the house of the almighty (temples, gurdwaras, churches and mosques). That again hurts the prospects of many good properties. “I have observed that even the very religious-minded people prefer living a little away from such holy places. As the devout visit these places all the time to offer prayers, it is not easy to live close to such places. Naturally, properties close to temples and churches are also not high on the priority list among those who look for a place to live,” says a senior official of realty major Ansal API. According to Samir Jasuja, MD of Prop Equity, “The more we change, the more we remain the same. Indians are very finicky when they decide upon a house. They look for east facing, corner, near market, park, school and many other things before taking a final call.”
Banks and ATMs operating from residential colonies are also a huge hazard as they prove to be bad publicity for the locality. According to realtors, as banks go on the rampage in opening their branches and ATMs to spread business, they are opening both branches and ATMs even on the main roads of residential areas to attract customers. In their bid to attract customers, they do disservice to those places. It is reported that after bank branches or ATMs start operating, customers visiting there also drift inside the colony, which aggravates the traffic woes in the area further.
So, should properties near hospitals, banks and places of almighty not be purchased or taken on rent? “Rather than avoiding them on the grounds of fear or some other weak reason, one should grab such properties as they are available at lesser amounts,” says Nuzhat Alim, director of ILD.
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