Designing a Home - House Sketch (Part 2 - Conclusion)

So, I was talking about designing our new home. Now as I see my house, I can give you some tips, that might help you in giving final touches to your paper map. I would advice that all houses should have enough free space for light and air to come in. That for me, is the most practical requirement, that we all should aim at. Next, although I am not a big believer of Vaastu, I would still suggest you to follow its basics, especially regarding the  entrance gate of the house.

On a practical note, I would advice that kitchen should be as far away from all the toilets as possible ! So should be the 'Puja' room, i.e. if you plan to make one. It should have a small garden, and it should be full of trees, big and small. These things helps in keep the envirnment around the house fresh and heathy.

If you are planning any modern look for your home, then you should always consider it with respect to rainy season. All the slopes should be in accordance, so that water from terrace doesn't sticks anywhere by any means. Slopes are of utmost importance here ! Don't just go for looks, they wont count after a few months, so be practical and plan your home according to comfort, and not mere style !

Designing a Home - House Sketch (Part 1)

Now that we were done with the builder, our next step was to design the house. We had a sketch in our mind, and we were hoping that it comes out in real, from paper to bricks !

We narrated our requirements to the builder, and he used some software, add his own suggestions, and provided some rough sketches (graphics rather !) to us. We debated day and night for on the final plan of our house, and at finally, after long discussions, we finally settled for a common sketch out, which overall satisfied every member's requirement.

There was a small garden,and enough parking for two cars  at the front. The entrance opened in the main hall of the house, which has stair moving to the first flour. In the ground floor, we had a bedroom, and a kitchen next to it. The bedroom has a bathroom attached, and we made sure that its far away from the kitchen. We also ensured that there is enough space for air and light in every room. We designed windows accordingly.

On the first floor, we had a living room, and 3 bedrooms, all of them were attached to bath room. and finally we had the terrace, which gave us a fantastic view of the colony ! The fact that there was a nice park right  in front of us made the whole scene even more pleasant, cheery on the cake !

Finding a Bulider (Part 3 - Conclusion)

All right, as I have already suggested that one needs to find a right builder for making a house. My money would be on someone you know personally. Second option will be to select from the recommendations of close relatives and friends that you trust. The final alternative will be to look in classifieds.

If you go for the second or the third option, then its very important to analyze the builder before you finalize him. It is very important to know about his professionalism and also a bit about his nature. Ask for his earlier works, and if possible try to visit a few of the. That will give you an idea about how good is her at his work. Also when you visit his creations, then confirm his goodwill from the person he had dealed with (in this case, it will be the owner of the house that you are visiting).

Also ask him clearly about the contract prize , better to have a contract in written. Also ask him about the emergency and maximum value of spending. After making all inquiries, you should make judgment as per your own consciousness. I have seen that things becomes much easy, if you are dealing with someone you already know, thats why I always emphasize on human relation. Good human relations compliment good business relations perfectly !

Finding a Bulider (Part 2)

So, as I was talking about finding the right person for building your house. We already had a close relative for that. We knew he was kind in nature, and not like an authoritative, diplomatic builder that you expect of a profession like that.

We never have to bargain with him about the contract prize, and it all went smoothly. He use to come for payments at fixed time interval of 15 days (as per every 'amavasya' - no moon day), and as he was a relative, (and a good one !), we had a good understanding between us. If he requires funds at odd occasions, he would inform us is advance so that we can make our arrangements accordingly. Same with requirements of materials. He took care of everything, right from cements to the interior decoration material for our house, (after consulting with us of course !).

What I am trying to say is that, if you select the right person , you will most certainly have things done rightly. Practically, the only problem that one can face at times, is the arrangement of funds. So I think its very important not to show off, and know your finanancial limits, and plan things accordingly. I would again like to put emphasis on the fact that the base of an act should be strong. For house building the base starts from knowing your financial limits, knowing your requirements, buying a plot and selecting a builder. f you can do all these things right, chances of messing up in between reduces to almost zero. So, do pay a lot of attention to the basics !

Buliding a Home - Finding a Bulider (Part 1)

After we bought a plot, the next that we needed to take was to look our for a builder. Fortunately, we had a relative here as well! You might find the mention of relatives irritating, but I am here to share my experience with you, and I reiterate, that  at the end of the day, thing work out more smoothly and effectively with personal contacts.

I will strongly recommend all of you to first look out for someone you know to finalize as a builder. If you dont know anyone, then better inquire from your close friends and relatives, to suggest some reliable person to you. Looking at the classified should be the last thing in your mind ! Trust me, if you can get the basics right, the you wont have to bore trouble for the next 6-8 months, till the till your house takes shape. But if you get the builder wrong, then you will not only end up spending more than your budget, but also suffer from dead line delays, and un necessary frustration during the work in progress.

So, the next step is spend a lot of time search for the right person. You are not looking for a good builder, but a good person ! That's my tip for you !

Buying a Plot (Part 4 - Conclusion)

So, in this way, the first step at making our sweet home was done! To sum up, I will advice you to buy a plot from someone you have a relation with, or at least some kind of connection. This really helps in getting the right price, as well as, it minimizes chances of any kind of fraud too.

Before we were thinking of  buying the plot, we came to hear about that it is a disputed plot. Now in these kind of situations, you need to confirm the news. We inquired fro our relative, who had connection with the administrative authority concerned, and he asked the local area of jurisdiction, (under which the plot comes) to inquire further through records. He later confirmed that the dispute was indeed there, but later own when we contacted the owner of the plot, he told us that the dispute was over, and showed us the relevant documents, which were confirmed by the local police stations records.

What this did was that the seller, though we already knew him through a connection, became aware that we have had some influence in these matters, and he became more polite towards us after that ! Not that he was rude at the first place, but trust me, contacts  do make a difference!

 Another point that I would like all of you to pay attention is that, do confirm the authenticity of plot's registration documents by a good lawyer. Again, rather then going by market value or reputation of a lawyer, better first try to find out if you know someone personally, as I sincerely feel that these things do make a lot of difference at the end !

Buying a Plot (Part 3)

 So, after searching and having a nice look at the options available, we finalized a plot which was around half a kilometer away from our residence. It was a new colony, and we liked the location, as it was calm and quite, with a nice colony park, right in front of our plot.

We bought it around a year back, and at that time their were lots of empty plots in that area, including the one next to us. Now after about an year, we see that the price of land have be on riots ! Not that it was any less expensive back then, when we bought the plot, but in just an year we came to know that our neighboring plot was sold at about 30 % more than what we paid ! So this gives you an idea about how much has inflation affected the prices of land. We also came to know that in past couple of years, some biggies have put their money in this business, and hence they have cons pirated this abnormal price hike in real estate business.

Anyways, we bought a small plot of 40x30 for about 3.5 million INR which is about  75,000 USD. It was enough for us, as we planed to make it double storied house.  In India, the registration of house a house is pretty expensive. The stamp duty is around 5 % of the value of the plot, and this is the reason that most of the people try to show the sales price as less as possible, in order to minimize the duty. This unfortunately encourages black money. Apart from it, around 50 K INR is to be spent on make other legal documents, and fees for the same.

We bought the plot under name of our mother, as the government provides some concession in stamp duty, if it is bought under woman's name ! Still, the actual value of plot turned out to be over 4 million INR, 4.2 million to be close to exact ;)

Buying a Plot for Home (Part 2)

In the last post, I was telling you about our experience with buying a plot for our home. The most important experience that I had during this home making venture is that ultimately, it our personal relations, that counts more than professional relations, as we saw that things became much easy, if we are dealing with people whom we already now n person, rather than a complete stranger professional.

Anyways, as I was taking about plot, we went to see a few houses (we were also considering buying a readymade one !) but things didn't worked out well. We didn't got what we were looking for, and we decided to buy a plot, and make a house exactly as per our needs. While we were looking for plot, we came in contact with a broker (though a classified ad), who also had a few plots of his own (at least thats what he told us !).

While he took us to plot location, we came to know that a close relative of his was a childhood friend of our family member. So this is what I was talking about, once you have a kind of relation, that is more than a prefesion, it helps in dealing.Not that he negotiated with price, but he atleast made a reasonable offer. We can make that out because we have had dealed with many brokers in this stint of our, and we could clearly see the change in attitude of this broker, once we had an established relation with his family.

I don't know how people would take it, by I definitely feel that these things do help a lot. Not only in buying the plot, but, in the overall process of house building, I observed that human relations do pay !

Buying a Plot for House (Part 1)

The first thing that we needed was to buy a plot for our house. We decided that we won't build a house on loan, as we have seen no one living in peace after he takes one, be it for buying a care, or home ;) By grace of god, we had enough savings, mostly because we lived a very sober life, with none of our family members into any kind of addictions whatsoever.

Anyways, for plot, we were looking something close to our present residence, where we were residing on rent. As we liked our present area, we were eager to  stay somewhere close to it. We inquired about plot's availability near by, and also started looking for it in local classifieds. After a few weeks, we found a few classified that suited our requirement, and we contacted the owner. He turned out to be a broker rather than the owner himself. Thus we learned how does it works ! Broker makes a handsome commission from the deal, which is included in the selling price of the plot, which ultimately we got to pay from our own pocket.

So the lesson learned was, its better to buy a plot from a relative or reference of a relative, because not only its a comparatively  trustworthy deal, but also saves the cost of a broker (i.e commission).

Contd ... ;)

Building a House - A to Z of it !

We recently made our own house. It was an interesting experience to see our baby come into shape day by day. I though, it would be great, if I can share my experience of making a house, right from buying a plot to its 'grahapravesh' (house entrance ceremony performed in India) with all of you.

May be you can also get some help in case someday, if you make a home for yourselves in future ! I hope it will be fun !