I exclaimed, 'Wow, so cheap!' when I saw the headline claiming it only takes INR 25 Cr to be Amitabh Bachchan's neighbor. Only when we clicked the link and read further did we realize it said 'Auction reserve price,' like that tiny asterisk on a 50% off followed by upto 100/- on a Zomato offer.
Firstly, 25 Cr is the minimum price the auction starts at. Similar properties in the news are around 100-130 Cr.
Secondly, is 25 Cr cheap for me, an entry-level employee?
I vividly recall my early days of curating daily flash and coming across a headline announcing an actress purchasing a 9 Cr bungalow in Hyderabad. When my director Vimal Nadar said, 'Gruha, it's not such a big number that we capture as news,' I became extra conscious, determined to fill those four newsletter slots with super impressive transactions and head-turning ideas – "the breaking news"!
Now, having crafted over 300 internal real estate newsletters, I've become numb to anything below certain digits. Determined to provide captivating content, I sought out even grander numbers, inadvertently normalizing what in reality is extraordinary.
Hard hit with the reality (again!) around depleting resources: urban floods to water scarcity, stalled infrastructure projects to overcrowded traffic. In between this, hits the harsh fact that millennials are on an unaffordable home spree. Though Gen Z are in a better state, the race between income and expenditure stands neck to neck. It's a hedonic treadmill!
Amidst the news of HNIs buying holiday homes and AI platforms revolutionizing, 'More than half of Gen Zers and millennials believe they'd need to win the lottery to afford a home' stays silent.
Let me know your thoughts on news insensitivity. Have you ever felt this way?"
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