Rates may have plummeted from what they were a couple of years back, but India's financial capital still continues to be more expensive than most other financial nerve-centres in the south-east Asian region. The declining trend in Mumbai and other financial capitals in the region, thanks to an economic slowdown and meltdown, continues unabated. However, rates in Mumbai are higher than elsewhere with the sole exception of Hong Kong.

The south-east Asian region has been plagued by arbitrary property pricing owing to the uncertain economic and political conditions, but the rates in Mumbai are comparatively stable, though are forecast to dip further. A research report compiled by Knight Frank has termed the regional real estate markets in the Asia Pacific regionas "depressed".

Jakarta and Bangkok have now been joined by Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong as the markets "most at risk". This, according to the report, is on account of the instability in the political environment, volatile currency markets, prospects of further falls in property values and rentals over the next three-six months, or some combination of these factors. Singapore has, thus far, been the least affected of the Asian markets, but even so, sentiment is very weak on fears of rising job losses owing to a deepening depression.In Mumbai, the inability of the Maharashtra government to effect changes in the Bombay Rent Act, 1940, and the much-awaited repeal of the Urban Land Ceiling & Regulation Act (Ulcra) are encouraging a wait-and-watch approach for prices to crash. Amendments to the Bombay Rent Act, 1940, notes the Knight Frank report, are likely to reveal around an additional availability of 14,000 high-end residential apartments in proper Mumbai.