House-hunting Tips

Searching for a house in Bangalore is no easy task. Here are some pointers for effective house-hunting:

1. Decide on the approximate location. Take into account your daily commute to work and the public transportation facility in that area. Note that rents vary widely depending on the locality.

2. Make a list of your requirements. Categorize them into Mandatory (got to have a bathroom!) and Preferable (preferably two bathrooms – but one will do if everything else is okay).

3. First try searching using the classified newspapers like AdMag or websites like http://bangalore.kijiji.in/ or www.magicbricks.com. You might get some good leads. In case of websites pay attention to the date on which the ad was posted. Some websites have ads that are more than 6 months old. Also be aware that some of the contact numbers may be those of brokers, in which case you’ll end up paying a hefty brokerage, thus defeating the purpose of looking at ads in the first place.

4. If you are willing to pay extra, get hold of a good broker (the word “good” here means recommended by someone, whom you can always blame later if the broker isn’t “good “). The brokerage will be a month’s rent (negotiable in some cases). Be clear on the area and your budget.

5. The house-owners will require you to pay a refundable deposit. That’s usually ten months’ rent. The deposit is negotiable in some cases. While you are at it, try to negotiate on the rent too (why pay more when you can pay less?) .

6. Insist on a proper agreement and tell the owner clearly that you’ll be requiring receipts for the rent paid. This will result in considerable tax saving on your HRA.

7. And when you finally find your perfect house, you can enjoy handing out unsolicited advice like I am doing now!

And the search finally ends…

My search for an accommodation finally ended yesterday. We found a 2BHK house near airport road and for once, it seems to meet all our requirements. It is very expensive though – a big rent and a huge amount as advance. Of course it is normal in a place like Bangalore to shell out such money and so even though it exceeded our budget by a good Rs.3000, we didn’t think twice before sealing the deal.

So this ends almost three weeks of the house hunting we carried out in the evenings. Also the innumerable calls made to brokers, searching through obscure ads in the classified magazines and looking at houses no sane man would ever wish to live in. Our house actually seems to have ventilation, a fact that made us make up our mind so fast, since our previous experiences in looking at houses tells us that the v-word is never taken into consideration by the builders. In fact, one particular house that ended up on the huge list of “rejected” houses actually had buildings so close to it that I wondered if any of the windows would fully open at all. And yet the broker insisted that the house had brilliant sunshine during daytime. If only he had paid attention in high school science classes…

Given a chance to go back in time (and of course with a pot full of money), I would definitely build a house in these areas to rent out to software engineers. I would surely end up with enough money to build more of them!