It has to be recognized that rental housing is part of the larger framework governing access to shelter and
houses in Kerala for different income groups. A significant part of the demand for rental housing emerges out of the inability of the lower and middle income groups to afford well located legal shelter, and this is more so in metropolitan cities. As the costs of land and houses increase, the poorer groups take recourse to the informal housing market for shelter on rental or other forms of tenure.
As the migration continues into the cities, the demand for rental housing for the bridge headers will increase. Rents will increase, as the supply of housing in the controlled or uncontrolled market proves inadequate to meet this demand. To a certain extent the private initiative is harnessed even for providing cheaper legal shelters, as it would mitigate the hardships due to rental housing.
Locating some new sources of funding to develop more housing units can further augment the supply of housing for rental housing. One approach is to increase the staff housing by linking it to house-building advances. Another option is to give inducements to the institutional sector to increase the supply of rental housing. The provision of staff housing, especially for the lower categories, can be made part of the project cost of an industrial project in a growth center, and made an eligible component of institutional finance.
The announcement of the mega projects in the cities of Trivandrum and Cochin is likely to further increase the demand for more housing units. Thus the rentals are likely to increase phenomenally. This is already evident in the immediate vicinity of Technopark in Trivandrum and Infopark in Kakkanad in Cochin. Rental values for apartments and flats in these two destinations are one of the highest in the state
