Budget Homes

Here is My search for genuine builder to buy a home in Chennai.
My experience with CREST HOMES, Atulya Smart Homes, MARG Swarnabhoomi.

As on date, there is no effective grievance redressal or adjudication machinery for buyers/customers in realty industry in India. The Real Estate Regulation & Development bill 2011 is in draft stage, not in action. So, it is the buyers-we have to be cautious in selecting the builder carefully. The worst is we are in hurry to buy a flat without back ground verification. We do not scrutinize the builder/promoter and we do not compare and evaluate correct price.

When I was interviewer for a reputed to company, HR team search the google, linkedin by the candidate name. Today, it is easy to get atleast some details about any individual in internet. HR team have a walk through into pages provided by google for the candidate name. We are not doing such verification for a builder. Of course, I did not. We should use the net diligently at least before making a life time commitment not to become life time mistake. Man in hurry is an easy 'prey' for builders.

If you have seen the movie 'Finding Nemo', you could see in the climax where school of fishes which are already caught in fishermen's net. But they worked together and break the net and escapes. Such way we the collection of individuals have to contribute our experience to have a fool proof transaction in realty when politicians and officials are busy making money.

Internet is the right place to ventilate our grievances and atleast save and give awarness to one or two person from the 'buyers mob'.
When your friend, neighbor, relatives, colleagues and any knownone, please advise them to have a search in internet about the project/builder/promoter and the area. Do not let them go blindly and feel later. At least spread this message.

Please be aware that experience is subjective, vary from person to person. Some other might be having different experience than what I had with above builders/promotors. I have ventilated my emotions here, that is't.

Flat Size
Promoters or builders claim that they are selling flats sizing from 600 sqft, 1000 sqft, and etc. Have a tape, measure the flat you like to buy, the measurement will not match the size claimed. It will be less than 20% from what is said by builder. If your flat is 1000 sqft in agreement it may not be the case if you measure it. If you ask why the difference than, your builder will say flat size includes common area too, then there will be an explanation for what is 'carpet area'. This is not the case in the past, my father purchased a flat 19 years back, which is exactly the same size as mentioned by the builder, we measured manually. Though there is enormous common space provided in the apartment, my father got exactly the same size as mentioned by the builder.

Have a tape, measure your flat to know the size of your functional space before you buy or make the down payment. This you can do in ready to finish or ready to occupy flats, not in 'launch/vacant land booking'.

We have measure the flat with a tape. Have such habit henceforth

My colleague, who believed to be living in 640 sqft flat for 3 years, recently, he shocked to know his actual size of flat is 540 sqft.

Single Point of Contact
Go for single point of contact from beginning to end. In many projects, there will be separte marketing team, contractor who does the building and promoter who actually does the business.

In such cases, first you can reach out to marketing team. Once you make the down payment, marketing team will not attend your phone call or they do not respond to your queries. If you ask when the construction will be completed, and you will be redirected to some body. If you want to do any alteration, you will be redirected to somebody else.

You will be kicked here and there. You can not reach out to builder/contractor since they do not know who you are. Promoter will be out of reach. Construction has to finish on its own course, you will not have any info, you have to be fingers crossed.

Make sure that you will have a single point of contact. The best is go for where promoter, builder, and the marketer are same person. In my family experience such transactions were through successfully for my father, brother, and sister.

Home Loan
Every builder or marketer I met they insisted me that I have to make the 20% down payment to get loan. This is especially with Rajesh from MARG. He was keep telling me that 20% down payment has to be made before getting the loan. This is not true.

The risk here is, you make the 20% down payment then apply for loan and your loan get rejected. If your loan application is rejected, it is not so easy to get your money back from the crocodile called builder. No government or legal system or institution will help you to get your money back from the builder.

There is a difference between applying for loans and getting the loan amount issued to builder. To apply for loan and know whether your loan is sanctioned are not YOU DO NOT NEED TO PAY THE DOWNPAYMENT to builder. You can apply for loan without even paying single penny to builder. You can make sure that you are an eligible candidate by seeing your sanction letter. Until when the bank is about to issue the DD to the builder, you do not need to pay the down payment.

Here you verify that you are loan is sanctioned and you can securely pay your down payment. So need to worry as what will happen to your down payment/advance if your loan is rejected.