Booking a flat in Delhi/NCR is a dream turned nightmare experience for someone, having as little knowledge about home as a techie turned manager has about management, and I learned it the hard way literally. As it goes..
After listening about numerous upcoming projects in rapidly expanding boundaries of NCR region, I decided to pick one of the various similar sounding schemes of sweet 'affordable' homes. It was a long thought of decision, not only due to investment opportunity but more out of future needs for the anticipated inorganic growth in the family having two bachelors.
Taking help of peers knowledge as I could no longer rely on mine. Now with every listening to such similar sounding housing schemes, more carefully this time, resulted in gradually growing list of differences and compromises. "Why can't they make a sweet 'affordable' home with all the good things in it?" it kept coming back with every addition in the list. But soon I realized the answer lie in the question itself i.e. it can be sweet OR affordable.
So I re-framed the quest of sweet homes with 'decent' rise of acquaintance, fortune and (not so decent rise of) expectations. While short listing projects, broadly I came up with following points of considerations:
1. Builder - Strong base and status of past projects
2. Time to possession - faster the better
3. Specifications - material used in different parts of home
Above and few unmentioned points (like lack of on-going projects and availability etc.) left me with 3 builders coming up with a project each. As I learned from one of my colleagues, Its next to impossible to take a decision without visiting the site of the project to find the status of pre-construction facts highlighted by the builders like land acquisition,covering, bhumi pujan, construction level etc. So I decided to look around a bit one by one.
Deciding to close it in one blow, an upcoming builder, having delivered last few projects on-time and of good quality, made it obvious choice above the others. As we (I was accompained by the other bachlor of our family) reached the ground zero of our new home, obviously we were very confident about our first choice, it reminded us of big neighbourhood park where we use to play while growing up. But here no one was playing except few stranded agents with a copy of prospective plan of hugh buildings which will be standing across the ground in couple of years. On second look, the whole area was covered with banners and ballons of the builder which was the only indication that we were at the right location. One of the agents shaked us out of blank state, may be of project, and enlightened us with some facts about the project and better position of builder which regained confidence about one blow theory and reaffrimed the price of hard work put in before coming here. In a little while, he started sharing other benefit factors in all 4 directions like nearby market, offices and fully developed sector. Suddenly, it stuck us, "What about the 4th direction?" to which he subtly replied, to our jaw dropping reaction, that there is an old cremation ground.Haunted by my religious part's superstitious thoughts, Our hopes of taking a home had taken a backseat. Still we decied to move to the builder's office, the same gentelman helped by guiding us towards another hiden part, probably to clarify the new fact we had just discovered. As we reached the office, less enthusiasm left in us was also because of parching heat of Delhi, it struck as fresh air if the quality of construction is anything to go by. In middle of well crafted and decorated with prototype model of projects, we met an official sales person of the company who started with the details which looked like redundant information now. Basically, we wanted to straight come to the point about the latest addition in our list of considerations, the surrounding localities. So finally I poked the question to him, who seemed unperturbed rather pretty well prepared for it. He parried my question saying,"Its an illegal use of the place and authorities will get rid of it sooner or later". After gazing through some sample flats, we left for home still thinking about the various aspects around the site rather unconvinced by the argument of authority taking action against any religious activity.
Couple of weekends gone by due to various commitments of both of us, when we again embarked to second site visit without losing much time and now fully aware of its importance. This one had early time to possession as one of its highlighted USP. Once we reached, It was a little familiar scene with an exception of some stalls/tents of different real estate companies and some sparingly visible home aspirants in them. We also reached to the one who was interacting to me before coming here. Quickly we moved to the land site, behind the stall, to have a look at it. Initially I was trying to figure out the exact location among perfect square land pieces of farms with, seemingly, ready for harvesting crop but then the agent, pointing towards the piece we were standing on even worse having craters in different shapes and sizes, confidently claimed that we would see the four 20-storey buildings here in 2years. Though his confidence was showing his sales experience but I doubted his construction mathematics since even me having no civil engineering background could also anticipate that a 20 storey building will take at least 20 months given that each floor takes 1 month after foundation is laid which will require at least 6 months including removing the craters, digging and leveling of the field. It was a different matter that land was still to be acquired and fenced by the builder. We were blunt enough with our observations and calculations to asked him for some real expectations, which was the end of chapter for us.
In an attempt to salvage the reputation of his company (or his job), he called upon some senior members of his team who were looking after other projects in the area. As the dicussion continued about various aspects of construction and project, we tried to cut the story short by keeping their esteem and asking for 'best' project for long term investment (baniya's usually thinks unilaterally in all situations) as per their knowledge and understanding. Unhesitantly came the reply, to our smilling faces, with the name of builder which was third on our list.
Instantly, we decied to have a look at the last resort of our endeavour. On our way to final destination, agent was pushing all sweet candies he had in his promise kitty about servicing standards of his company. As we reached at the location, it was a different experience to see enough curosity among the good number of aspirants and everything well organized and managed in terms of facilities. Looking at the various under-construction projects going on there was instant comfort and confidence booster. Though with so many projects in hand and few more coming up in near future meant that he has his hands full and scehdule tite, any slip in one's deadline or cash reserves of the company will have direct impact on others too. But knowing the builder's reputation and strong base in India, it seemed like a calculated risk. Lots of queries and few apprehensions, we almost decided on this one but before finalizing anything we spared a thought of rest of family, friends and peers (which proved invaluable so far).
When first time thought crossed me that it will be easy once I close in on the final project, little I knew of the inconsequential small things coming my way, one has to consider as one digs deeper from project to home selection.
To be continued..
