My Dream Home - still pursuing

Like almost everybody, I was dreaming about my own house since my college days, though not as palatial as the houses shown in our Hindi movies. It was realistic dream at least till I passed out from my college. My dream house had a lawn, big windows, large doors and a big gate. And most importantly it was built on my own land.....


I belong to small place in northern India. I have completed my engineering (in computer science) in year 2002. At that time, if someone had to built the house like I described above, would cost around 12-15 lakhs INR. The land would cost around 5-7 lakhs and the decent construction cost would be around 7-8 lakhs for a single floor. In 2002 with a job of INR 3.6 LPA, I can save around 2 LPA and within 3-4 years, I would have my own house... my dream house....


I passed out from the college with campus selection letters from four good companies. However during June 2002, because of slowdown in IT sector, I got regret letter from all the four companies. All the money that I had spent to give the treat for the campus selection went to drain. Although one company was courteous enough to send me the basic pay of one month along with regret letter (some solace that at least I got some money back). I was in the market with lots of skilled professionals looking for the job, I forgot about the house and start hunting for the good job in Delhi/NCR region.


Finally with GOD’s grace I got a job after 3 months struggle and 3 years down the line with lots of effort and hard work, I got decent job. When I got settled in my job and saved some money, I again started pursuing my dream about owning a house.


I started exploring the market to make realize the dream in 2005. I met the brokers to buy a land in Noida. I faced reality to know that the rate of land was 38-42 thousand per sq.mt in good localities like sector 19, sector 15 and 32-36 thousand per sq.mt. in other areas. The MIG plot of size 110 sqmt would cost me around 46 Lakhs in good locality and 40 lakhs in other area. The amount was very high than I had expected. Still I didn’t lose hope and sat with pen and paper to calculate how much I had in my pocket and how much I had to finance through loan. All the calculation became worthless when I came to know that almost 50% of the total price, I had to pay in black......yes in black...yeeeeeeeee. This was the second experience of reality with realtors. I got disappointed!!


After this shocking experience, I came to ground with reality and started looking for the apartments. In 2005, many builders were mushrooming in Indirapuram, Ghaziabad area. All the builders had sample flats ready to lure the customers. All the property newspapers were flooded with the property advertisements quoting "rates are revising soon", "sample flat ready" and "few flats are left". To me, it seems like everybody was running to buy flats. Like others, for me also, the 25-30 lakhs amounts were like putting my savings of whole life to pay the apartment cost. However for builders the amount is like penny and customer could buy the house like buying fruits in the market (very tough decision for me, very simple decision for builders ……. Hmmmm...) My search went for 5 years though it stopped in between for 2 years because of Lehman Brothers shocking news(I don’t have to challenge your intelligence)
While looking for the flat for past 5 years, I gained following experience:


1.) You will not get the flat exactly same as shown in the sample flat. Reasons are... Area looks big because the roof height is much more that the actual flat would have. In sample flats, usually builders were keeping the roof at a height of 12 feet and in actual flat it would be anywhere between 8-10 feet.


2.) Sample flats are carefully decorated by interior decorator to make them look more spacious. The furniture kept in sample flat, light fittings, décor items, wall colors, bathroom fittings etc make it look awesome and the buyer starts dreaming of such a flat....



3.) You should be aware of the Super area, build-up area and carpet area.... I will explain all these terms in my next blog....



4.) Down payment plans, CLP (construction linked plans) and now flexi plans(don’t worry these technical terms will be taken care of in the next blog).



5.) Get better deal only if you have very good negotiation skills.



I finalize two flats and gave them the cheque of initial amount. However when I came to know that these builders did not have enough money to complete the project on time and some banks had blacklisted these builders, I had taken my cheque back. Bad or Good Luck, I don’t know.



Finally I did not find any flat which could fulfill all my basic needs considering the cost of the flat. It took me 3-4 weeks to finalize one house from the flooded market, but alas! By that time the prices of these apartments again got revised. Property newspaper comes as a supplement with each newspaper which advertises the launch of one or the other project which inspires me to continue my journey of house-hunting without fail :)



Picture abhi baki hai mere dost (This is just a trailer) as how I finalize one apartment