Last week The New Indian Express carried an interesting article about the booming paying guest business in Chennai. That useful article immediately made me recollect my meeting with a housewife last year.
A friend of mine was working in a multinational software company that had a development facility in a South Indian town. My friend introduced me to Vanathi with these words of appreciation, "Had I not met Vanathi, I would have resigned from my job long back. As soon as my company told me that I had been transferred to this town from Bombay, my family asked me to quit the job as they felt it was not safe for a woman in her twenties to live alone in an strange place that was hundreds of kilometers away from Bombay. I too felt that was the right thing to do then. But my boss asked me to talk to Vanathi over telephone and then decide about quitting job. I did and I am here now."
"She is very generous in appreciating others," said Vanathi, "I am a business woman and I did everything that was possible to me to win a customer." "May I know what your business is?" I asked her. "I run a paying guest business," replied Vanathi.
"Oh, that is interesting. Can you please tell me what made you start this business?" I asked her.
She said, "I was an average, perhaps below average, Indian housewife. My husband is an accountant in a private firm, Though his official work time is 9 to 5, he actually works from 9 to 9! Every day I had to somehow spend all the free time at my disposal and like most other Indian housewives I got hooked to Television programs. But I knew deep inside my heart that I could employ my time for productive purposes. One day I saw a big advertisement in a local newspaper that this multinational company is setting up a small development facility. As soon as my husband read this article he said that the rental value of good houses in this area would go up because the employees of that company were highly paid and would not mind paying high rent for decent accommodation. That passing comment opened a window in my mind."
"Your husband knows the world well. Whenever a new project comes up, hundreds of income opportunities pop up overnight," I said.
Vanathi continued, "There are two sets of people. As this is a small town and I have been living here for more than fifteen years, I have countless friends here. Many of them owned houses and flats but were scared to let them out. On the other hand, there would be many women employees who have to come here to work for two or three years as their jobs were transferrable. Many of them would be looking for safe accommodation. These high income earners don't prefer poorly maintained women's hostels. So, I decided to match these two sets of people. I would enter into an agreement with my friends and use their houses as paying guest accommodation. I would employ a few cooks to provide food to the guests and maids to take care of other routine needs. Paying guests would expect furnished accommodation. But I did not have any money to invest in the furniture and fittings. So, I approached a few friends who had furnished flats. They were happy to let the flats out to me because they felt women on transferrable jobs were safe clients and I was there to take care of the flats personally. They did not even take rent advance from me"
"You are lucky to have such nice friends," I said. Vanathi said," Then I approached the management of the company. They were very happy with the proposal as they were spending exorbitant amount of money on hotel and restaurant. Within a week, I had 15 guests in three flats. I was paying Rs. 4,000 for each of the two-bedroom flat towards rent. The food expenses, utility bills and workers' salary cost me Rs.30,000 a month. My total expenses were Rs.42,000. Each guest paid me Rs.4,000 a month and so my gross receipts were Rs.60,000. I could not believe that I had made Rs.18,000 in the first month."
"So, you immediately expanded your business," I tried to guess. "Though I wanted to expand, I could not immediately. You need at least Rs.75,000 to take a house on lease and furnish it. I did not want to borrow. So, after three years, I operate a paying guest business with six flats and make a profit of Rs.30,000 a month."