Different perspectives to Affordable Habitat

It is interesting to note how different stakeholders look at affordable habitat. For example, an asset manager defines that an affordable habitat has to be affordable in terms of living cost as well as transit cost to the work place. On the other hand, a builder's point of view is: to make a house affordable, it should be located in the city outskirts. Hence to understand the dynamics of this domain, we studied the analyses of Jones Lang LaSalle India and Lafarge Group.

Jones Lang LaSalle - Indian Real Estate - Charting a Global Course
Jones Lang LaSalle is a professional services firm specializing in real estate. It provides investors, developers, local corporates and multinational companies with a comprehensive range of services including research, analytics, consultancy, transactions, project and development services, integrated facility management, property and asset management, sustainability, warehousing and logistics, capital market, residential, hotels, health care, senior living, education and retail advisory. For further information, please visit www.joneslanglasalle.co.in. They define the Indian Real Estate Ecosystem as shown below:

Source: http://www.joneslanglasalle.co.in/ResearchLevel1/Indian%20Real%20Estate%20-%20Charting%20a%20Global%20Course.pdf

Lafarge Group

The study was conducted by Escale Responsable for Lafarge Group in May 2010. Lafarge is a world leader in building materials. In order to understand the housing needs, aspirations and the market segment at the bottom of the pyramid in India, a study was conducted by interviewing slum dwellers in Kolkata and some organizations working in this sector. The following organizations were interviewed:

This study identified the following aspects as the key to affordable habitat:

Following affordable habitat models in this segment were identified in the study:

Availability of affordable finance also comes up as one of the major influencers.

Source: http://www.escale-responsable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Affordable-housing-in-India_needs-and-emerging-solutions.pdf

Both studies agree on the following aspects:
1. A strong stress on development of effective micro-finance infrastructure and other finance sources
2. Need for new technology and innovation
3. Sustainability
4. Efficient construction management
5. Industrial mass production of houses
6. Availability of cheap land