Carpet area, 10ft space, Setbacks, Elevation, Amenities and lots of cash – if this set of words doesn’t ring any bell to you, then a warm welcome to a cold “Realty” world…a world of dreams, a world of sentiments, a world of hard money and quirky fate! This world simply survives on nurtured dreams and dies on shattered dreams!
Talking about dreams definitely reminds me of this concept called 'Dream House'. Be it a small space with a single roof or a palatial bungalow, it is called a 'Dream' house when you burn all your savings, have a loan which can only be cleared just before you retire and 'buy' this house which is your 'dream-come-true'. Today a lot of couples especially the newly-wed ones are scouting for a house to fulfill this dream. The moment they set out their journey to find rather buy a house, the novices in them dawn! The realty world to them is dizzying right from the vocab to the wierd ways in which the world runs !!
Dont know where to begin...why fear when Google is here! They take the internet's help as the very first step and begin their search. The internet shows wonders to them. Remember they are realty-illiterates and so they are trapped. They start making cold calls to builders who claim to promise the sky but in reality right from the area they claim to the quality everything seems skewed :(. If the builder says two minutes drive from the chowrasta, he actually means 2kms and more from that point. If he says the price quoted included all amenities, then all he means is just 'lift and car parking'. Dont get carried away by the word 'amenities' it means nothing you have imagined. Even if it includes a big list when you finally start living there you realise everything comes at an extra cost. The list of white lies continues...!! If you are looking for a Gated Community, then the word 'amenities' tantamounts atleast '4 lakhs' If the amount is less than that I bet he isn't offering any good amenities.
The builder is an expert in everything under the sun. He is a vaastu expert, teaching you new fundas of vaastu and justifying why that balcony had to be small or why the hall's shape looks weird, an expert fortune-teller predicting how the government can change in the next few days, how a new road can come, how this area can become a prime area..!! If one construction looks like a train compartment, the other one looks like a school building, the other a non-ventilated den with criss cross compound walls..PHEW!!!
The couples dont compromise in the beginning and keep rejecting every house for one reason or the other. Finally after screwing their countless weekends and their mental peace, they relook at their priorities and thus begin the 'Compromises'. Finally they do find one house and resolve to end their unending search after compromising here and there. They announce to the world that they finally bought a "house" conveniently ignoring the word 'dream'. The routine dialogues being - 'This house is just an investment', 'We had to compromise in the sft area or the distance from the road or look and feel etc', 'we will rent this out.' 'we still have a loong way to go...our dream house will be after 40'...etc etc....Most of the time your house doesnt come in the budget you have set.
Phani & me went around for two months and were almost fed up. When we first saw our future flat, both of us loved it ! But since it wasn't coming in our budget, we just 'wished' it was ours and left the place. From then which ever flat we saw we had unconsciously compared that flat with our future flat. After a couple of visits again and again to the place, a huge fight with the builder vowing never to come back to that place, we finally made it "Ours" :-)
This is just the first step of a series of mentally irritating things..a lot of pain in the form of registration, interiors, carpenters, electricians etc begins now. Do thank me Im sparing you all the painful details here :)
It takes a lot for this happy ending. Dont be surprised if you are acting like a wreck :P. But imagine spending time with your loved ones at a place which you call "Yours"....Bliss ! No wonder home is where the heart is.
PS : I wrote this one a year ago when we bought our flat in June 2009 but obviously it never saw the light of day. Thank you VasuGuns for taking me back to those memories and bringing this out of the shelves with your good news! Congratulations again :-)
Talking about dreams definitely reminds me of this concept called 'Dream House'. Be it a small space with a single roof or a palatial bungalow, it is called a 'Dream' house when you burn all your savings, have a loan which can only be cleared just before you retire and 'buy' this house which is your 'dream-come-true'. Today a lot of couples especially the newly-wed ones are scouting for a house to fulfill this dream. The moment they set out their journey to find rather buy a house, the novices in them dawn! The realty world to them is dizzying right from the vocab to the wierd ways in which the world runs !!
Dont know where to begin...why fear when Google is here! They take the internet's help as the very first step and begin their search. The internet shows wonders to them. Remember they are realty-illiterates and so they are trapped. They start making cold calls to builders who claim to promise the sky but in reality right from the area they claim to the quality everything seems skewed :(. If the builder says two minutes drive from the chowrasta, he actually means 2kms and more from that point. If he says the price quoted included all amenities, then all he means is just 'lift and car parking'. Dont get carried away by the word 'amenities' it means nothing you have imagined. Even if it includes a big list when you finally start living there you realise everything comes at an extra cost. The list of white lies continues...!! If you are looking for a Gated Community, then the word 'amenities' tantamounts atleast '4 lakhs' If the amount is less than that I bet he isn't offering any good amenities.
The builder is an expert in everything under the sun. He is a vaastu expert, teaching you new fundas of vaastu and justifying why that balcony had to be small or why the hall's shape looks weird, an expert fortune-teller predicting how the government can change in the next few days, how a new road can come, how this area can become a prime area..!! If one construction looks like a train compartment, the other one looks like a school building, the other a non-ventilated den with criss cross compound walls..PHEW!!!
The couples dont compromise in the beginning and keep rejecting every house for one reason or the other. Finally after screwing their countless weekends and their mental peace, they relook at their priorities and thus begin the 'Compromises'. Finally they do find one house and resolve to end their unending search after compromising here and there. They announce to the world that they finally bought a "house" conveniently ignoring the word 'dream'. The routine dialogues being - 'This house is just an investment', 'We had to compromise in the sft area or the distance from the road or look and feel etc', 'we will rent this out.' 'we still have a loong way to go...our dream house will be after 40'...etc etc....Most of the time your house doesnt come in the budget you have set.
Phani & me went around for two months and were almost fed up. When we first saw our future flat, both of us loved it ! But since it wasn't coming in our budget, we just 'wished' it was ours and left the place. From then which ever flat we saw we had unconsciously compared that flat with our future flat. After a couple of visits again and again to the place, a huge fight with the builder vowing never to come back to that place, we finally made it "Ours" :-)
This is just the first step of a series of mentally irritating things..a lot of pain in the form of registration, interiors, carpenters, electricians etc begins now. Do thank me Im sparing you all the painful details here :)
It takes a lot for this happy ending. Dont be surprised if you are acting like a wreck :P. But imagine spending time with your loved ones at a place which you call "Yours"....Bliss ! No wonder home is where the heart is.
PS : I wrote this one a year ago when we bought our flat in June 2009 but obviously it never saw the light of day. Thank you VasuGuns for taking me back to those memories and bringing this out of the shelves with your good news! Congratulations again :-)
Hari every word said here is true for all of us... today or tomorrow we all get lured into this mire for the sake of investment/property in Hyd/compulsary saving/whatnot... I do not know whether our quest for this so-called-happy-ending... is it really justified or are we too ambitious or way to conventional.. but at the end of the day we are all in it :D
ReplyDeleteHowever one small note...call it God's blessing or what... we went out just for one day and zeroed in on a flat...(Guns made me roam another day coz he thought we put too little effort grr) But then this is thanks to a year of Guns realty experience for OraHomes. Infact we almost drove past that house thinking it would be out of our reach when I urged him to 'Lets just have a look' and as I said it was a blessing. I'm not saying it is a dream home as we never were looking for one.. but it satisfies all the parameters that we set when we decided that we are getting into this investment mode.
ReplyDeletewow! a superb narration of the hardships towards a dream house. Looks like you became a realty expert! You captured every detail superbly. I liked especially the one about Realtors behaving as if they know everything under the sun. I will surely look to your advice when buying something.
ReplyDeleteHaritha garu, your blog truly reflects our hunt for new Dream house. We've been searching for it for last 2 years but not yet found/built it :-)
ReplyDeleteGoogle Buzz Updates :
ReplyDeleteKiranmai Bavirisetti - I need to call you about 'Our builders' " eminities provision after reading this! Be prepared!! :P Jun 10
hari shankar - I totally agree with you. Fantastically described about middle class pain.Jun 10
Sravan Deepala - anduke illu katti chudu annaru :-)Jun 10
Phanindra K.S.M. - Great narration!Jun 10
kalyani suresh - Haritha - for you two it was just two month for us it was 2yrs but finally we bought what we truly call as dream house in every aspect it meets our requirement and fulfills our expectations, we moved with our bundle of joy. Today when some one tells me your flat is beautiful we two are truly proud of our adventures ifs buts etc and more importantly the pain we have undergone is searching and securing our flat.Jun 10
srinivasa mouli - Very cool narration.......Yeah I remember... when I called phani you picked and u were very excited and poured so much of information ... I think that is the longest call i spoke wid u and Phani... congratulations once again.. illu kaTTaTam kaadu konaTamU kashtamE annamATa :( :(
kotta illU... konTe pillaaa(ammu gurinchi nee gurinchi kaadu harithA )... adirindayyA phaniiiJun 10
B Haritha - Thank you guys....After all the effort I feel it was totally worth it ! We have picked the best of the lot and we are very proud of our choice :)