Kathmandu, Sept. 29 -- When Sachin Dangi arrived in Pokhara for two months of work, the cheapest decent apartment he could find cost him $30 a day. Not 4,600 in Nepali rupees, but 30 US Dollars. He rented it and was the only Nepali living in the building. What Dangi had run into was a rental market that, in practical terms, had stopped catering to people like him. After all, if he decided to stay at the apartment for two months, he would have to pay about Rs276,000.

"The lowest price I could find was $20 to $30-Rs3,000 to Rs4,600 a day," said Dangi, founder and chief executive officer of Saarang, a web-based platform for tourists. "For a foreigner, that's still pretty cheap." At Paramount Apartment, where he stayed, the math made sense t...