Welcome!

If you are here, chances are that you are tired of your wife's nagging and have accepted the fate that it's time to move out of your parent's abode, which for years had been a paradise for you. If not, your parents must be planning to kick you out of the house. Still better, you are looking for a good investment opportunity. Or, have simply shifted base to a new city and looking for permanent accommodation.
But, for those hit by escalating costs…maybe, this blog can butt out 'the but' in your case. So, feel free to read it and leave your comments.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Interesting joke on Satyam’s Raju

Three world famous magicians were in the bar drinking and boasting about their achievements.

The first one said, “During my latest show, I made three women from the audience disappear, it was so convincing that their relatives started panicking, no one could find the trick!”

The second one said, “Hey, that is nothing. During one of my open air shows I made the Municipality building disappear and the entire town was searching for it!”

The third one sighed and said, “Both of you are so local, I went to Paris and made the Eiffel Tower disappear for a full one hour, it was live on the TV, entire France was searching for the building & no one had a clue.”

Just then an Indian walked into the bar and the three magicians suddenly turned quiet, gave each other fugitive glances and started to slip towards the door.

A Bartender watching this got curious and asked one of the magicians, “Hey what happened? Who is that guy?”

One of the magicians whispered, “He is the World’s greatest magician, he has done the biggest disappearing trick of all times, we are all mere amateurs compared with what he has done. His name is Ramalinga Raju. He has made $1.5 billion disappear from his company’s balance sheet in front of everyone’s eyes, and the entire world is still looking for it.”

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Houses cheaper than cars!

I usually take the National Highway No. 24 while coming to office and like always today too I couldn’t help but notice a large signboard saying – “Coming soon: Houses cheaper than cars”.

And like always today too I thought, “What’s the big deal. It has been the case for decades; at least as far as high-end cars were concerned. Cars like Merc and BMW would always costs higher than an average 2BHK house.”

However, that’s not what the advertiser meant when he put up that signboard on the highway. He obviously was taking into account cars, which are within the reach of the urban middle class.

But, then he forgot to mention or purposely refrained from stating the location of the site. Still, it’s common knowledge that the farther you move from the city limits the cheaper the rates get.

Here too the same logic would apply or chances are it may be a teaser advert for one-bedroom houses, which are easily affordable.

In any case you might find more such adverts of late and I would just say they are all measures to counter the ongoing recession.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Home Loan – Stay put with your bank

If you are thinking of switching your bank owing to a higher interest rate on home loan, then this is for you…

While the State Bank of India (SBI) has frozen interest rates at 8% for a year for new home loan seekers, many are reconsidering their decision to go in for SBI or a PSU bank as opposed to private banks like HDFC and ICICI, which offer loans at a much higher rate of interest (11-13%).

No doubt it would be feasible for you (in case you are a new seeker) to go in for a PSU bank, but if you already have taken a loan from a private bank, transferring it to a PSU bank isn’t advisable.

Firstly, it’s a very tedious process and involves a lot of paperwork; secondly chances are that you may end up paying much more by virtue of ‘prepayment charges’.

In some case these charges may be as high as 2 to 3%. Besides, such a transfer is not possible without the banks approval. So, I would say it’s not worth the effort.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Bad news for realtors across the board

This wasn’t surprising at all, in fact many investors would have thought about it earlier and may have been anticipating government’s crackdown across the board. And that has actually begun. I would say all this is fallout of the Satyam saga.

First it was global investment banking major Credit Suisse, who came up with a report that contained bad news for the blue chip companies and yesterday the Income Tax department ordered special audit of DLF accounts of FY06.

Apparently, DLF had allegedly tried to lower its tax liability by understating sales for 2005-06.

The IT department may have restricted it’s investigation to DLF but Credit Suisse’s report pointed a finger at all the bigwigs in the industry.

It’s report on corporate governance practices of major real estate companies, it said that DLF, Unitech, IVRCL, IBREL, Parsvnath and Sobha Developers are lacking in transparency and that certain key financial disclosures have not been adequately provided.

Both DLF and Unitech, for instance, showed “revenues on a percentage of completion method even where the cash receipt is yet not due,” the report said.

Unitech's investments in telecom, an unrelated business at a time when the real estate business needed funds, are also under the scanner.

In FY08, DLF sold real estate projects (assets) amounting to Rs 5,560 crore to a promoter-controlled entity, DLF Assets. It also cancelled an earlier sale of assets worth Rs 1,890 crore.

Another builder, Parsvnath Developers too has a mismatch between revenue recognition, cash flows and capitalisation of interest expense.