For the price of an air-ticket, you can buy a home in US

CHENNAI: Return tickets for Delhi-New York are priced around Rs 75,000, but with real estate prices crashing in the US, Indians could buy homes t

here for the same amount! Thanks to the bottom falling out of the US housing market and struggling families abandoning homes, unable to keep up with mortgage payments.

A detailed look at US realty websites such as realtor.com, zillow.com and ziprealty.com show that homes with one bathroom and bedroom are being advertised at anywhere between $1,500-3000 (Rs 69,000-1.38 lakh), an incredible fact by itself, in places such as Detroit, Michigan, Jackson, Mississippi, and Cleveland, Ohio.

"The lowered residential property rates in many parts of the US can be attributed to the sub-prime crisis, which has caused a huge surplus of stock in the market, besides reducing liquidity, which slows down absorption," said Raminder Grover, MD, Homebay, a subsidiary of international property consultants Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj.

As per law, homes can be purchased by US residents, and the low prices could suit students travelling to US and techies sent for on-site operations. As per the RBI cap, an average Indian can invest upto $200,000 (Rs 93 lakh) in US real estate.

"Students live in apartments or as paying guests by shelling out $250-500 per month. If they or their parents can afford to pay money upfront, this might be a good option for students planning to stay for 1-2 years," said Sridevi, US counsellor for Valmiki Group, which processes study visas for US. Over 6% of US home loans are in arrears and around 1.5-2 million Americans have lost their homes to foreclosure in 2007.

As in India, additional costs could be from the cost of borrowing, brokerage payable for the location of suitable property and registration of the purchase. For the likes of Rohan, an IT professional who is soon to be sent to New York for 3-6 months, a home could straightaway save $500-1000. Junior and middle-level techies get $400-600 per month as house allowance, while project managers and higher-ups are said to get even $1,000 per month.

But students or techies going to states such as Nevada or California may not be as lucky. "In California, homes still come at $50,000-200,000. Indian students cannot afford to pay that much. Plus, a group can still rent out an apartment for $2,000-3000 and split the costs," Sudha Kumar, recruitment coordinator at Viterbi School of Engineering (University of Southern California), said.