The metro station where life is just starting

Rohit buys flats in Pune to rent out. He owns six, and wants his next two near the city’s new metro line. Everyone knows rents rise near a new metro station, so prices at the obvious stops have jumped. The trick is the station where life is just starting: new cafes, gyms and coworking spaces. Rohit walks stations every weekend, and still guesses. With xMap Flows, Rohit built Signal. Every Saturday at eight, Signal draws a ten-minute walk around each new metro station, finds the cafes, gyms and coworking spaces that opened there in the last year, keeps the ones new this week, puts them on a map, station by station, and emails Rohit his Saturday brief. Within two months, one station pulled ahead: around Vanaz, eleven new cafes and two gyms had opened, more than anywhere else on the line. Rohit bought a two-bedroom flat there, before the asking prices caught up. Rohit stopped buying where the metro is. He buys where the life is starting.

The story in words