'For 1 house in Bengaluru, 185 people compete': Finfluencer calls out India's metro housing paradox

A ₹20 lakh job offer in Bengaluru once meant you’d made it. Today, it comes with a ₹75,000 rent bill and that’s before GST. While salaries crawl, landlords sprint ahead. A 7.5% hike in pay is met with a 10% spike in rent. The city that once promised opportunity now delivers anxiety.

Into this growing chaos, Wisdom Hatch founder and finfluencer Akshat Shrivastava dropped a stat that hit like a gut punch:
“For 1 house in Bengaluru, 185 people compete.”

In contrast?
“For 1 house in Dubai, 7 people compete.”

The numbers tell a story India’s metros are trying hard to ignore.

“There is not enough land. And, too much population pressure on our cities,” Shrivastava wrote on X, setting the stage for a bigger concern—one that isn’t just about real estate, but planning failure.

“Traffic, pollution, crumbling infra are all signs. Mind you: this is not a population problem. This is a planning problem,” he posted, pointing squarely at a decade-long drift in urban development.

He argues that India's cities are bursting at the seams not because of sheer numbers—but because of concentrated opportunity. “Our governments failed to spread jobs beyond 10 cities in India. This unplanned development is now wrecking havoc.”

Shrivastava’s post was triggered by a user venting about Bengaluru’s impossible economics: “Salary hike I received was 7.5%, meanwhile BLR landlord increased the rent by 10%.If this goes on, someday my rent will become more than salary.”

To that, Shrivastava added a biting line that resonated widely: “Congrats on getting a 20L job in a city: now pay 75K+ GST to live.”

The responses kept coming. Another user wrote: “Anything less than a 10% salary hike is criminal. Authorities suppress inflation data, and companies use it to justify minimal hikes. Meanwhile, rent, groceries, other basic items increase by 10% YoY are the becoming norm. Time to face our metro cities realities!”