Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter The Chennai Real Estate Market

For the medieval scholars who I know frequent this blog will be happy to know that I've uncovered a missing chapter to Dante's Inferno here in Chennai. In the last couple weeks as Padma and I have been searching the city for an apartment we have come to the realization that the final stage in a soul's journey though hell can easily be accessed though any broker or classified ad in the newspaper.

Let me explain. For those of you who have only had the opportunity to find apartments in sane and honest cities in Europe or the United States, you might not be able to wrap your head around the infernal state of land lording here in Asia. And, no I'm not just talking about the silly questions that brokers and landlords ask before renting, or the way that the price fluctuates seemingly at random. That's just part for the course. The real pain comes after you've found a place you like.

Take this great two-bedroom flat we discovered in the heart of Kilpauk. It was in our price range, had lots of light, decent flooring, bathrooms galore and a functional kitchen. It was more or less perfect for what we wanted and we told the broker that we would take it. He smiled knowingly and said of course we could have it and rubbed his palms together in anticipation of his fat brokering fee. All we were going to have to do was talk to the landlord, pay him a wad of cash and move in. Or so we were told.

The only catch was that the landlord was out of the country and we would have to wait a week for him to return. So we call off the brokers we had been talking to, give up places that were equally good and waited. Until Wednesday of the next week.

At that point we meet the landlord in his office in Anna Nagar (he sells hip-replacement devices for a living). We asked him some basic questions about the place. Such as, why do we need to give a 10 month deposit? Can we paint the place? When we give him the deposit can we get a receipt for the money? They were the sorts of questions that anyone would ask who is about to part with $2500.

He was smug and business like. "If you don't want it, I can find someone else to move in no problem," was his answer to everything we said.

We left feeling unsure about whether or not we really wanted to have him as a landlord--the apartment was nice, but he certainly wasn't. But we had promised to give him a deposit of 5000 rupees to start the transaction.

Then at 9:00 AM this morning my phone rang with the broker on the other end. The apartment was mysteriously not available anymore. Apparently landlords only want tenants who have tons of money and no questions. So we spent another two hours looking at places today and nothing was any good. It looks like this may take longer than we had expected.

Only when we had that realization did it happen. The ground opened up beneath our feet and the concrete let out a poisonous burp of sulfur and tar. When we came to our senses was a dusty manuscript in Dante's own hand. It's first words?

"Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter The Chennai Real Estate Market"