Before you leave the sales gallery
1. Carpet area, in writing
Not super built-up. Not saleable area. Carpet. Then divide the total cost by that number and compare only those figures between projects. Two flats quoted at the same rate can differ by two hundred square feet of actual floor.
2. The RERA registration, looked up yourself
Get the number and check it on the GujRERA portal rather than accepting a screenshot. Read the declared completion date and compare it to what you were told out loud. We wrote a short guide on what the filing shows and how to read it.
3. What is included in the quoted price
Ask specifically about floor rise, preferred location charges, club membership, infrastructure and development charges, electricity and water connection deposits, legal charges, GST and, separately, stamp duty and registration. A price that looks lower often is not by the time these are added.
4. Parking — allocated or notional
Covered or open, and is a specific bay allotted in your agreement or are you being promised “parking will be provided”? Count the total bays against the number of flats. If a 120-flat tower has 100 bays, twenty families are going to be unhappy and it will not be the builder’s problem in three years.
5. The common plot, as drawn
Look at the approved layout, not the brochure render. Check the common plot exists at the size shown and is not doubled up with the driveway or parking. This is one of the most common gaps between marketing and sanction.
6. The maintenance figure, and who sets it
Ask for the per-square-foot monthly maintenance and what it covers. Then ask when the society takes over from the builder. Amenity-heavy projects carry running costs, and the first few years are usually the cheapest they will ever be.
About the building
7. The developer’s last three completed projects
Not their upcoming launches. Their finished ones. Go and stand in one that is five years old. Look at the lifts, the lobby, the water pressure, the parking, whether the promised amenities exist. That building is your building in five years.
8. Delivery record versus declared dates
Compare what earlier projects committed to under RERA against when they actually handed over. A pattern of eighteen-month slippage is information, and it should be in your price.
9. Which floor, and which direction
In Ahmedabad this is not a preference, it is a running cost. West-facing living rooms on a high floor take the full afternoon in April and May and you will pay for it in electricity every summer for as long as you own the flat.
About the location
10. Go back at a different hour
Visit once on a weekday at 9 am and once on a weekday at 7 pm. The road that was empty during your Sunday site visit is the road you will actually commute on.
11. What is planned next door
The open plot beside the tower with the uninterrupted view is going to be built on. Find out what is sanctioned for it before you pay a premium for that view.
12. Water, power and drainage
Municipal water connection or borewell? What is the borewell depth and the water quality? Power backup — full or partial, and how many points in your flat? Is the drainage connected to the municipal line or to a treatment plant the society will have to run?
And one more, which is really the first
Work out what you can actually afford before you look at anything. Not the loan you can get — the EMI you can pay in a bad year. Every difficult conversation we have with a buyer traces back to this, and it always happens after the booking rather than before.
We do these checks as a matter of course, and we come to the site visits. It costs you nothing on a new project — the developer pays our brokerage.
Ask us