Buying a house in Bangalore !

A Dream of every Bangalorean is to buy a good house in the Jayanagars, Basavangudis ,Koramangalas of Bangalore. I am also one of those aspiring millions.

The first step in trying to find potential buyable properties is to get in touch with a good real estate broker. Believe me there are more brokers in Bangalore than the number of houses or sites for sale.This is the most difficult step as more than one broker deals with a single property.

Having found a good broker, we have to go about looking at the houses he shows us.I just dont understand, how their brochures are showing such beautiful houses and the ones shown to us are such crap.And every broker you meet needs some advance upfront which I quote " can be deducted from my commission Sir ".This is mostly a non refundable amount as the chances of finalising a house with just one broker is almost nil.

If by chance, the broker comes to know that you have lived in "foreign" for sometime, then every seller is assured again I quote " Dont worry sir....you will be paid full in cash!!! You dont have to worry about the money at all..Everything will be in one payment".Hearing this the seller raises his price by another 20%.

Fine..After all this hassle and after a lot of coffee and transportation charges to the broker, we settle on a property and now it is the time for 'The Discussion' where in you will meet the seller.The broker , who by the way is taking money from both parties, tries to play a part where both the seller and buyer think that he is talking on their behalf.Ok deal is agreed upon and the seller insists that he be paid a certain amount in black which by the way wont be shown on the deal papers.This is called 'In Black'.They say this will help the buyer save money off Stamp duty.He has forgotten that his quoted price for the property has led the buyer to almost file for bankrupty.

Anyways, it is the time to receive a copy of the property documents.A list of the given documents is given and we produce the copies in a bank for security check.More times than not, the documents have 101 discrepancies and mostly they dont contain the name of the person whom we met as the Owner.

If you are lucky, the papers get approved by the bank, then we have to collect the originals from the seller ( another big delay) and then we have to apply for a loan.This is another hurdle.The bank will now try to find out if there are any problems with the said property and will try as much as possible to find some reason to avoid giving you the loan.They very much like the word DEVIATION i.e. what is the percentage difference between the plan and the actual building.You wont believe it but sometimes the builders have a deviation of more than 100%.

After the bank is assured of the percentage deviation is less than some 5%-6%, they go ahead and approve the loan.The loan amount is released after like a month.

Everything is set and now we have to register the property in our name.Take as much cash as possible as there is a lot of bribe to be given.

After everything CONGRATULATIONS on paper now you own the property .Ofcourse there is still the Khatha which will take more than a year to be released.

All the above processes take lets say a minimum of 6 months to a year and consists of a lot of travelling, stress, hassle and not to avoid the constant nattering of those so called brokers.
I sometimes wonder if it is really necessary to go through all this just to buy a house in Bangalore.But my answer always is " ITS BANGALORE, ITS HOME !!!"