A helping hand from numbers leads to objective opinions and confident decisions!!!

How does one know whether that wonderful property you want to call home is valued right and is a good buy? There are no standard parameters – other than few thumb rules like if you buy property at 10 to 15 times going annual rent, you are getting a good value. On the face of it, it seems these thumb rules are not of much help in Indian context. I can’t speak of other countries but here, using this criterion, it seems one will never be able to call himself an owner because most of the property deals never come close to this criterion of “value”. Case in point – I recently sold the only residential property I owned. If I consider what the buyer paid to me and the government (levies like stamp duty, registration cost etc) – it went for quite close to 30 times annual rent. Deals at such price are very common / normal. What is going on in the property market here? All the folks out there can’t be out of their minds in putting so much value on being an owner rather than being a renter. Fac...

Do you believe in doing the numbers before you form an opinion and take decisions about matters wherever monetary considerations are involved? I feel most of us do – some may do back of the envelope workings, while few prefer digging deeper. I fall in the later part and don’t mind firing up MS Excel and let the numbers help me arrive at an opinion. Then, armed with an “objective opinion”, I procced with “decision making”. Arguably, subjectivity cannot be totally ruled out of any decision, though once you have numbers on your side, your confidence levels about the decision you have taken get a boost. Or let’s simply say – you feel good about the decisions you have taken as numbers driven opinion gives you a good shot at arguing your case, especially if your decisions don’t seem getting the desired results. That’s what this blog is all about. Sharing how numbers lead me to “opinions” and then to “decisions”. A word of caution – don’t take my word to for the sake of it: though I will be...