Hyderabad: Going around the city one would find to-let boards hung outside every third house. This indicates how the departure of migrants and tenants has had devastating effects on landlords. Many are now deprived of the monthly rent that paid for household expenses.
These families allege that they cannot even come out and ask for help. The landlords who are supposedly among the middle class segment of the society fear to ask people for money. They feel that they will disbelieve them as many feel that working class possess huge savings.
The worst affected among them are landlords who have been surviving on the rent they receive every month. The outbreak of the pandemic had either resulted in the migration of their tenants to their native places or the rentees’ inability to pay rent.
Several NRI’s or foreign returnees either tend to invest their money in business or rent out their properties to sustain themselves. They too are experiencing the same problems.
As they are very less people coming to take the houses for rents the landlords have to unwillingly let the flats for rent on lesser prices.
Middle-class families, who dipped into their meager savings after their sole earning member either lost his/her job usually fell back on this monthly rent.
One of the landlords said, “My tenants did not give me rent for almost the past two months. If we ask them, they would WhatsApp me the video of Telangana Chief Minister where he says that the rent can be paid in bits and pieces and not the whole amount at once. Where will we get the money then? Will KCR pay their amount?”