When you have spent your entire adult life in rented homes and apartments, owning your own little slice of property is a dream.

Living in India with my current status means there are considerable hurdles to ownership, however as an Indian citizen, my husband can.

Right from when we met, he was looking at land outside Mumbai… after a few near hits, misses and – let’s face it swindles – it seemed at long last we  found our little slice of heaven on the road from Mumbai to Goa.

Our ‘blue room’ aka study/guest room

Until our landlord threw a spanner into the works!

He has regretfully given us notice… our beloved Bandra home will be sold over the next 2-3 months.

Very kindly, he’s given us the 1st opportunity to buy it… knowing that after nearly six years, the building society is happy with us and even the secretary keeps urging us “Ask your landlord to sell to you!” 

We also know what to expect… cognizant that every decade or less, there will be upheaval as infrastructural repairs take place. We’d be only too happy to remain.

Alas, his expectations are double our current capacity and yet, with his announcement, we halted our plots and plans for land outside Mumbai to shift focus completely to our backyard.

A rare remaining Bandra bungalow… naturally 100 times outta our league…

To make an interesting discovery…

What was once completely out of our reach has now become a difficult but not impossible.

Thanks to demonetization, home purchases can be made with ‘white’ money.

Thanks to GST and further slowing of the economy (no matter what may be said publicly, this is the case!), prices have come down considerably.

And biggest surprise to us both, free-lancers like ourselves may actually be eligible for a modest mortgage… as banks are crying out for ‘assets’.

So… if anyone knows of a decent 2BHK (translation 2 bedroom, hall, kitchen with 2 bathrooms) anywhere in Bandra West, East, Khar and even a bit beyond… let us know!

And don’t laugh at our budget… it is small but sincere.

PS – Turns out it was a ‘false alarm’! No sooner had we decided against buying, found a new flat, were about to sign the lease… our landlord decided NOT to sell after all. Given our overall comfort in our current abode, hassle and expense of moving, we’ve decided to accept his change of heart and renew for another three years. Our aspirations remain unquenched… just now back to our original plan to get a wee plot of land in the country.

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• We have our home back!
• It never ends… shrug and sigh
• The many faces of home