Why are brokers in Bengaluru making ridiculous demands from potential tenants?

From checking LinkedIn profiles to forcing them to buy existing furniture, brokers and landlords in Bengaluru are raising fresh hell for young tenants, with the recent tech layoffs making matters worse

The city of Bengaluru, the capital of the southern state of Karnataka, is a story of many wonders. The Brookings Institution, a US-based non-profit public policy organisation, ranks it as one of India's fastest-growing and most productive areas. It packs in dense layers of history and heritage in its old quarters that date back to 890 CE. By various estimates, Bengaluru alone contributes 80 per cent of the state’s GDP. What could possibly go wrong? 

Apart from the sharp uptick in communal incidents in the recent past, brokers, flat owners and landlords in India’s Silicon Valley have devised an unsaid block of rules that make it close to impossible for a young tenant to exist peacefully under a roof. The rationale is clear: Home-owners have to now make up for all the losses incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic when they leased out their apartments and accommodation for paying guests at low rents. How exactly do they make up for it now?

Sea of demands 

Saurabh Jitranjan, a 32-year-old communication consultant at a renewable energy firm in Bengaluru, told The Established that only two months ago, his ten-day search for a house in the city ended when he thought he’d found the perfect home — encased by a lovely garden, abundant natural light, open streets and housed in a building that didn’t look like it could crumble if someone sneezed too hard. 

“For starters, the deposit amount demanded was four times higher than the rent itself; it was non-negotiable, and to varying degrees, this is common across the city, particularly in posh areas like Indiranagar and Defence Colony,” he says. “Begrudgingly, I agreed to it. But before I could sign the rental agreement, the owner asked for my LinkedIn profile, demanding I explain and justify every phase of my life.” 

Jitranjan adds that while he is aware that owners usually want to know your current employer to assess whether you can afford the rent, what explains being inquisitive about every phase in your LinkedIn profile, starting from your school years? Additionally, if such a heavy deposit of money has to be paid upfront, which equals nearly half the year’s worth of rent, surely the tenant can afford the monthly rent? Already exhausted from having spent ten days looking for a house, Jitranjan gave in to the owner’s demands and signed the lease. “The broker told me very seriously that I should consider getting married as that would make things easy. He wasn’t joking.”

In Aarushi Bhushan’s case, the demand was rather peculiar: She had no choice but to compulsorily buy the existing furniture in the house she wanted to move into—some of it was of no use to her. What was she going to do with an outdated, teakwood dining table, anyway? 

“She was selling all her furniture for ₹60,000, apart from ₹1 lakh in deposit, so technically I had to pay ₹1,60,00 if I had to move in,” says Bhushan. “I don’t understand why people would bully someone into buying their furniture. Eventually, I had to let go of the house.”

According to Arjun Nanda, founder and CEO at YHATAW Real Estate Facilitators Pvt. Ltd, one needs to look at the general situation of increasing rents from the lenses of commerce as well as the push and pull forces of the real estate market. “The owners are generally willing to negotiate on the basis of your job profile,” he says. “We must also understand that the property rates have gone up, but the rental yield (return on investment on a property) is still in the range of two per cent per annum.”

This means that if you’re purchasing a house for ₹2 crores, you will only get about ₹2 lakh in rent per year, and thus a rental yield of two per cent. “Fixed deposits promise a higher return but the property remains a safer form of investment for many because there is a capital appreciation, where the price itself of the property increases every year, and that is exactly what’s happening right now,” adds Nanda.

Beyond the rents 

Shivam Mishra, a 26-year-old software engineer at a start-up, also had to show his LinkedIn profile when was looking for a penthouse in central Bengaluru with three of his friends. He explained that the recent layoffs hadn’t changed the situation either, because the demand for new homes, particularly in areas such as Defence Colony and Indiranagar, is at an all-time high. 

“One of my friends got the apartment that I wanted, solely because she was from IIM-Ahmedabad and I was part of a start-up no one had heard of,” says Mishra. “They feel that people from unknown or unheard of start-ups are risky tenants because we might get fired anytime soon and might just pack our bags and leave.”

This is a fear that Nanda says many homeowners faced during the pandemic—and the loss of jobs certainly didn’t help. “There were cases where some tenants who lost their jobs couldn’t pay rent and left. If tomorrow, there is another health or global emergency, homeowners don’t want to face such a situation again. They are looking at tenants who can pay rent even if they are sitting jobless for three months.”

Eventually, Mishra managed to get an apartment in a high-end society, admitting that his caste privilege might have eventually worked in his favour. According to various reports, caste and religion still dictate the choices of many landowners. In 2016, the department of town and country planning in Karnataka approved a housing project named The Vedic Village – SankarAgraharam, which, as the name suggests, is exclusively meant for those belonging to privileged castes.

If you ask Sahil Parihaar, a Bengaluru-based broker who also works in New Delhi, the city of Bengaluru is certainly divided along the lines of caste, evident in some of the ridiculous demands that he himself faces from his clients. “Some owners are of the belief that only if you’re from the privileged caste can you pay rent, and have a higher social profile. This puts us in an uncomfortable position with our tenants. If the brief is only from the owners, how do we move?” 

Presently, the Silicon Valley of India seems to be functioning at the intersection of class and caste considerations. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, or even how “well-behaved” of a tenant you are. If you don’t possess prestigious degrees and a job that screams multiple digits in terms of salary, good luck finding decent accommodation.

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