5 Tips For a Successful Home Search in India

To find a house in India is easy, to find a home is a challenge. Unlike the west finding a home in India can be a lot more demanding and frustrating experience,the six most important components of finding a home for Expats in India are:

1) Distance from Office.

2) Distance form School.

3) The cost of accommodation.

4) Security.

5) 24 Hrs electricity (Power Backup).

6) Amenities.

To get the all six is a task in India. To have a painless and successful home search you need to follow a few steps, in most properties you will get 4 out of 6.

Here are 5 tips to help you with the home search process:

•     The first thing is to find a good real-estate company, your company may appoint one for you and you will start interacting with them, the first thing you need to do is engage with the people on the ground they will be the one’s who will be showing you the houses, all professional realtor companies have need assessment questionnaire and you should take the time to fill it out completely. This will give the property company something to start working on. This process should start about 6 to 8 weeks prior to arriving in India

•     The property/realtor company based on your brief will shortlist about 10 to 12 houses that fall in the above mentioned six categories, and they will send you a listing on the houses with description, photos, amenities, security, parking, age and furnished semi furnished and a small writeup on the place. .

•     Once you have received this then you can start getting familiar with the properties that are available. There are certain areas in cities where each and every house is different and the rents are also different, one house could be US$ 2500 per month and the house next to it could be US$ 4000 or US$ 1500.00. This is due the size of the apartment and condition and amenities that are available, make sure that all provide power backup, & security.

•     The community housing have come up in the last 15 years and they are developed mostly in suburbs,  a city like Delhi does not have multi-storey apartments, there are independent house or floors, a city like Mumbai does not have Independent houses and only has apartments, in Bangalore one has a mix of apartments and gated community and is quite similar to Gurgaon.

•    In India distance is not measured in miles it is measured in time, in a city like Bangalore you could take an hour to travel 6 to 8 miles, its important to understand the traffic and the traffic times, every 15 minutes makes a difference, most offices start in India at about 0900 hrs so from 0800 hrs the traffic starts, this is followed by business people and shops that open around 10.00 AM, then one has the Malls, restaurants etc theses start at 11.00 Am. If you start at 0745 you will find the minimum traffic from your residence.

I am sure that you will find a house that you would make your home in India, the objective is to make it as painless as possible….Happy Hunting..

Pro TIP: If you are using more then one realtor then ensure that you write the list of the properties you have seen and its more likely that the second realtor will show you the same house as the previous realtor, In india people tend to use multiple realtors.