What is low cost housing?
Posted: August 6th, 2009, 11:38 am
hi all.
in the recent days, we are seeing so many ads on economy/low cost housing(Specifically Apartsments) by major business tycoons like Puruvankara, manthri, confident and even Big Bazaar Group. Be cautious before dealing with these projects. some of the points to be kept in mind about these projects are
1. How come all this big players started affordable homes suddently. How exactly they're working on reducing the cost of construction, as they're nowhere mentioning the technical specification and the dimensions of their flats. They mentioning only the cost of the flat like 2 B/R costs Rs. 14 lakhs...etc.
2. Since these projects are yet to be started, it takes atleast next 2-3 years for the delivery. you need to chk the terms and conditions very cautiously whether the developers price is fixed forever or he has the right to revise the price of the project based on market condition.
3. In my hard opinion he is playing with some of the specs and raw materials or in the construction/dimension in order to work out the cost.
4. The locations mentioned by these new projects are almost 25 kms away from the Bangalore city centre. Obviously you need to remember is that the land price in these areas are not attractive and doesn't have manu public amenities.
5. Lets calculate the construction cost. if the price of the land is around Rs.500-600/sq.ft and for a 10 storeid building, it comes down to Rs. 50+ per sq.ft(remember even for the basment parking space, they charge you. so the dividing count will be 11) and if you add the costruction cost as Rs. 900, and the builder says he is giving at just Rs. 1900/sq.ft/sq.ft(only the base price and he may says in his earlier projects he was charging rs. 3000/sq.ft to fool you), directly he has a margin of almost 100 percent and again he takes the other charges like Car Parking, BWSSB, KPTCL deposits, Club member Charges, Maintainance charges corp fund, vat, sales and registration charges.
6. nowadays in all the new projects builders are reducing the height of the wall construction by 1-2 feet to save the cost.
7. As usual they're using the ultra-low cost Alluminium Glazed Windows which doesn't cost you more than Rs.300/window, while a conventional wooden window cost you moe than Rs. 1,500 even with an average wood quality.
8. Nowadays buldlers are not using Teak wood door to the main entry also. They're using processed flush doors.
9. mainly these guys are reducing the built up area of the flats itself. Earlier the usual 2 B/R flat dimensions were ranging from 900 sq.ft to 1250 sq.ft . But the new projects are coming up with 700 sq.ft to 950 sq.ft only.
10. No builder is using Granite/marble flooring. Their spec says only the ceramic tiles and if you want anything above this quality, you need to shell out extra cost.
11. For the sanitary and electrical fittings spec, always they make Jaguar or equivalent. But they're using the local makes only. even the modular electrical switches they use are economical ones like cona/roma/lisha/hifi...etc. You can't expect, Crabtree,Legrand,siemens, sazler...etc
these are just few points to be verified before jumping into these new projects. go through their fine prints thoroughly and if you can't understand few things, don't be hesitate to consult someone who can give better insight into them.
in the recent days, we are seeing so many ads on economy/low cost housing(Specifically Apartsments) by major business tycoons like Puruvankara, manthri, confident and even Big Bazaar Group. Be cautious before dealing with these projects. some of the points to be kept in mind about these projects are
1. How come all this big players started affordable homes suddently. How exactly they're working on reducing the cost of construction, as they're nowhere mentioning the technical specification and the dimensions of their flats. They mentioning only the cost of the flat like 2 B/R costs Rs. 14 lakhs...etc.
2. Since these projects are yet to be started, it takes atleast next 2-3 years for the delivery. you need to chk the terms and conditions very cautiously whether the developers price is fixed forever or he has the right to revise the price of the project based on market condition.
3. In my hard opinion he is playing with some of the specs and raw materials or in the construction/dimension in order to work out the cost.
4. The locations mentioned by these new projects are almost 25 kms away from the Bangalore city centre. Obviously you need to remember is that the land price in these areas are not attractive and doesn't have manu public amenities.
5. Lets calculate the construction cost. if the price of the land is around Rs.500-600/sq.ft and for a 10 storeid building, it comes down to Rs. 50+ per sq.ft(remember even for the basment parking space, they charge you. so the dividing count will be 11) and if you add the costruction cost as Rs. 900, and the builder says he is giving at just Rs. 1900/sq.ft/sq.ft(only the base price and he may says in his earlier projects he was charging rs. 3000/sq.ft to fool you), directly he has a margin of almost 100 percent and again he takes the other charges like Car Parking, BWSSB, KPTCL deposits, Club member Charges, Maintainance charges corp fund, vat, sales and registration charges.
6. nowadays in all the new projects builders are reducing the height of the wall construction by 1-2 feet to save the cost.
7. As usual they're using the ultra-low cost Alluminium Glazed Windows which doesn't cost you more than Rs.300/window, while a conventional wooden window cost you moe than Rs. 1,500 even with an average wood quality.
8. Nowadays buldlers are not using Teak wood door to the main entry also. They're using processed flush doors.
9. mainly these guys are reducing the built up area of the flats itself. Earlier the usual 2 B/R flat dimensions were ranging from 900 sq.ft to 1250 sq.ft . But the new projects are coming up with 700 sq.ft to 950 sq.ft only.
10. No builder is using Granite/marble flooring. Their spec says only the ceramic tiles and if you want anything above this quality, you need to shell out extra cost.
11. For the sanitary and electrical fittings spec, always they make Jaguar or equivalent. But they're using the local makes only. even the modular electrical switches they use are economical ones like cona/roma/lisha/hifi...etc. You can't expect, Crabtree,Legrand,siemens, sazler...etc
these are just few points to be verified before jumping into these new projects. go through their fine prints thoroughly and if you can't understand few things, don't be hesitate to consult someone who can give better insight into them.