Saturday, August 12, 2006

Investment

The other day, I was watching a program on TV which was addressing the concerns of overseas Pakistanis wanting to invest in real estate back home. Give me a break! As if the pseudo-investment from within wasnt enough to blow things out of proportion. Property prices have increased to at least 4 times what they were about five years ago. House rents have sky rocketed. Anyone renting a house is obviously a salaried class person. In my opinion seven or eight years ago, any salaried person renting a house could never hope to own a house. Now, it's even worse. I am seriously wondering if we'll be able to rent a house one or two years later.
What the hell is this? I dont buy any such thing as investment in real estate. It's the most selfish thing I ever heard, which is benefiting one person and hurting millions of others. If it were investment in real estate in the form of hotels and stuff in the tourist districts, I'd understand, because that would give tourists better facilities and create employment. But no, I dont see people going that way. All they want to do is to buy a piece of land in a housing society somewhere, keep it till its price is three times its buying price (which, imho is at least six times what it reasonably should be), or erect a house and rent it out.
No one cares! And how about the masoor key daal selling at Rs. 70 per kg. To my overseas friends who think the present regime is good: Yea, sure. If they'd only leave us able to live. We might not be able to sustain livelihood for more than two years if these trends continue. OK, so the price trends are the same everywhere in the world, there's a slum, but we're getting subsidies, and aid, and still not getting it. Our oil prices are decided based on international market prices even though we are sold oil at much lower rates. But who cares, right! Not until you find the chokehold too tight for you to breath. Await that moment, my countrymen. I can only pray that at that moment, we depart as less painfully as possible.