Single and non-vegetarian? Good luck finding a home

The experience of moving to another city can be as daunting as it is exciting. The strange sites, unaccustomed streets may intimidate many; however, the one experience that is the most dreaded is the prospect of scouting for a rented accommodation.

"I found house-hunting to be even more difficult than looking for a job," exclaims Seep Gulati, who moved to Hyderabad a few months back. "It took me some time to understand that my single status was one of the reasons, since that would more often than not come up in conversations with land-owners," she added.

Mirroring Gulati's sentiments is a migrant from Delhi, Gaurav Goswami, who felt his North Indian background attracted a certain level of bias against him when he first moved to Bangalore. "Communication was a major challenge for me, but nothing came close to the helplessness I felt when looking for a place to rent. Some places even had open restrictions about certain food habits, and others were like pigeon-holes with zero security," he added.

And while the conclusions made may seem a bit far-fetched, it turns out there may be some truth to that.

Study confirms biases
A study conducted by online house rental company NestAway has found that searching for an accommodation in a new city comes with its own set of barriers and biases depending on who is looking.

This spans across food preferences, relationship status, physical appearance, religion or caste, and even genealogy. Majority of the 3,000 respondents who took part in the survey (19%) found that having non-vegetarian food habits becomes a big talking point while looking for a house. Close on its heels is relationship status (17%) which becomes a make-or-break factor. Interestingly, food habits is a greater concern in Bangalore, whereas being unmarried may be the bone of contention in Hyderabad and Mumbai.

The report titled ' Ease of Settling In' was conducted across key cities like Bangalore, NCR, Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad where people are known to flock to in droves. The respondents were aged anywhere between 21 and 31 years, with a majority (57%) between the age bracket of 21-24 and single (88%).

Commenting on the report, founder & CEO of NestAway, Amarendra Sahu said, "India is a complex market for urban migrants and we all know that biases and discriminations exist. Hence, it becomes all the more important for us to create an ecosystem that is welcoming and addresses the trust deficit that exists between landlords and tenants."

Money, safety and mobile network - top priorities for tenants

The report also went on to find that when asked to consider between security deposit, lock-in period and brokerage as factors that help them narrow down on a house, 40% of the respondents said that security deposit was the deciding factor for them. 26% also picked neighbourhood safety over utilities and amenities. But what may come as a surprise is that nearly 25% picked mobile network reception among their top priorities when looking for an accommodation.

The 'Ease of settling in' report also throws light on some of the other common restrictions that tenants face. This includes inviting guests of the opposite sex, entry-exit time curfews, and pets. A whopping 61% of restrictions were related to the lifestyle choices of young people, with men needing to drive a harder bargain, perhaps because of the assumption that they drink more than women.