Bangalore Blog 4 - All about buying a house. Part 2 - All about house hunting in a changing Bangalore

Part 1 of the blog :

Bangalore Blog 4 - All about buying a house. Part 1 - Renting vs Buying

On the 4th of September 2022, I came back from a company offsite in Goa and was welcomed by torrential rain outside the Bangalore airport. I barely managed to reach home given that out of the 3 entry points to my apartment complex, 2 paths were knee deep underwater and we managed to barely scrape though the third one.

My sleep that night was interrupted by a non stop fire siren blaring across the entire complex (my wife said she slept through it and woke up only after I woke her up). Everyone was vacating the cars from the basement due to water flooding and I too managed to take out my car just in the nick of time before it would start seeping into the exhaust pipes. There was no power or water for the next 35 hours and people had to take water from the swimming pool to take care of the morning activities. Thankfully, we managed to escape to our parents place in an area in old Bangalore and were there for a couple of days.

Everyone was surprised by the flooding since the apartment is not built on any natural drainage line nor does it have some shady non existent drainage. It turns out that the water was actually coming from another set of apartments from where water was being pumped out which unfortunately found its way to my apartment complex.

This all made national news where areas of Bangalore which include the much maligned ORR, scores of buildings and homes and apartment complexes across different areas all got flooded causing mayhem and much damage.

What is the point that I am trying to drive here and how is this remotely related to house hunting?

This is just an example of how there has been unhinged and unplanned real estate development all across Bangalore, especially in the new parts of the cities. Bangalore happens to be built on a plateau and hence has a lot of non-uniform altitudes. The system of lakes was a way in which all the water could be drained out of the city and there were all connected by natural stormwater drainages called “rajakaluves”. Some examples can be seen below (complete credit to Raj P Bhagat)

Also, the most well planned parts of Bangalore are actually the oldest areas be it the CBD or Jayanagar. This is in contrast to many newer parts which not only see unhinged real estate construction on the paths of natural stormwater drainages but also have absolutely no forward thinking planning done on other areas of basic infrastructure such as road width, road networks, footpaths, public transport, water connectivity etc

I’ve written a little more about Bangalore’s woes be in on Infrastructure here or on the issue with traffic and cabs here. You will get far more context on my thought process if you read these.

Why is infra in the newer parts of Bangalore getting worse?

To cite an example, the upcoming area of Panathur-Gunjur-Varthur has some mega projects such as Prestige Lakeside, Prestige Lavendar Fields, Sobha Neopolis, Sobha Dream Acres and Brigade Cornerstone Utopia to name a few. However, as fancy as these apartments might be, the infra around is abysmal to say the least. The roads are narrow, networks are poor (so getting in and out is a nightmare), it is built on large stormwater drainages, there is zero public transport such as buses and metros. There are other areas in Bangalore suffering the same fate be it:

• The entire Sarjapur Road cluster where an already horrendous traffic will likely get even worse with more apartments coming up and a rumoured metro project coming up. The number of u-turns in Sarjapur road alone makes my head spin. Check out this video from deep inside Sarjapur road where all you can see are either ads for flats/villas or home improvement shops

• Hosa Road and Kasavanahalli

• Belathur (the area between OMR and Whitefield)

So why is the case?

• I think the biggest reason is sheer ineptitude and lack of willpower by the governments. Because the city does not have a powerful and motivated figure like a mayor, the expansion is haphazard and run by people with vested interests be it landlords and middle men who just want the best monetary returns, builders who want to get hold of any piece of land where they can build, salespeople and marketers who just want to sell at all costs and a government which basically care only about how much money they can make. There is absolutely no incentive for them to think 5-10 years down the line and what really matters to them is survival and power.

  While he is no angel himself, I can’t agree more with what the MP from Bangalore South tweeted

• Builders try their best to trick the buyers with a sense of FOMO (“sir, we have only 2 flats remaining”) and paint an idea of a utopian community.

  In fact in one case, when I was looking at flat in Sarjapur Road very close to the Wipro head office, I asked the sales person if there is any word on the metro line that was being planned there and he blatantly lied that its unlikely any metro will come up. Marketers make the most cringeworthy ads and taglines.

• A small part of the blame also lies with home buyers like you and me. Ultimately, its the home buyers who are the end users and the cash cows. If they dont fall for rosy ads such as what I’ve shown above and refuse to buy in places that don’t deserve commercial attention, the entire value chain of builders and babus will have lesser incentive to get away with the atrocities they commit.

Criterion

Its near impossible to get a perfect home with a perfect everything so its necessary to list down the criterion and then think of what is important to you. What can be some of these criterion? I’ve listed some down below but there can be so many more

1. Location - this can have so many dimensions to it such as access to necessary facilities, schools, offices, public transport etc

2. Independent house vs standalone apartment vs small apartment complex vs large apartment complex

3. Infrastructure such as water connectivity, road connectivity, quality of footpaths and roads

4. Quality of the flat and facilities within the apartment complex or nearby such as club house

5. A new/under construction house vs a house on resale

6. Upcoming area vs established area

7. Most importantly, the cost of the house

So lets get into the most important part of this blog, what was my own criteria for shortlisting houses?

We started looking for flats with an open mind and with the help of Nobroker and some basic networking explored at least 25 flats in areas such as Yemalur (where we currently live), Bellandur, Sarjapur Road and Haralur, Whitefield, Kudlu Gate, Hennur-Thanisandra to name some areas. I never thought I’d be open to Whitefield 5-10 years ago but the infrastructure in that areas has grown exponentially better thanks to a lot of activism by forums such as Whitefield Rising.

Overtime, we realized some of our key priorities were -

1. Location - This was THE most important factor by a margin, especially for me. I wanted some place which

   • Ideally is accessible by public transport, a metro line would be a bonus

   • Had to be relatively close to the areas where its likely my wife and I would have our offices (especially given my wife cant travel long distances and I wanted to avoid wasting excess time in traffic)

   • Should be an easy commute to my parent’s place

   • Should have a sense of familiarity and be accessible to the old city

While we know that Bangalore is growing northwards by design and liked some of the flats we saw in Hennur-Thanisandra such as Salarpuria Gold Summit and Bharatiya City, we had to strike that area off because did not really fall under the criteria listed above.

Areas such as Central Bangalore, Indiranagar, Koramangala, HSR/Kudlu Gate, Bannerghata road had flats that were either way too old or way too expensive for us. And some of these areas do not have too many gated communities either

Relatively better new areas such as Electronics City, Yelahanka-Jakkur were just too far off.

The entire left half of Bangalore such as Yeshwantpur, Rajajinagar, Mysore Road, Kanakapura road etc was not even under consideration.

I have already mentioned enough for my disdain towards certain newer parts of east Bangalore.

2. Good public infra such as cauvery water (especially given how so many areas have to survive off water tankers), accessible roads and a clean surrounding

3. My wife was really adamant on having a flat that was on the 5th floor and above and with ample sunlight (although its literally impossible for us to find any flat that could get more sunlight than our current rented flat so we were spoilt there)

4. While I was okay with a standalone apartment, given the times we live in where time is money, we had a preference for a gated community with ample facilities

5. A 3BHK at the least (4 would be a bonus)

6. Despite coming at a lower price, I did not trust signing up for under construction apartments at all and neither did I have patience to wait for 2-3 years to get possession

7. A good view from the flat and availability of a small market nearby would be a bonus

8. Most importantly, the cost. We started with an initial budget of “x”. Now, we were tempted to go for a couple of dream like flats which were at 1.5x but prudence suggested that despite us being technically able to afford it, it would really put us in a precarious position and not leave enough safety of margin in case of unexpected financial constraints in the future.

Given our constraints, we were practical and open to a resale flat as well if if ticked more of the above criterion.

Eventually, after a lot of obsessing over NoBroker and ongoing rates across the city and smooth talking with the eventual seller who had 20+ seriously interested buyers he could choose from, we closed a deal. I thank the gods that his son went to the same school as me and that he stalked us on LinkedIn to see our qualifications. We eventually closed the deal at a flat in an area and apartment of our choice at 1.2x. The entire process of getting the paperwork done in itself was a harrowing and stressful activity but I guess that is a part of the process that one must live with.

It was honestly not a perfect dream home and we knew it and were perfectly fine with that. But for that price, it seemed like a reasonable enough deal given the crazy housing market in Bangalore where a similar flat located in an apartment next to a sewage line was quoting at 1.6x (!!). Given it was a resale, we were open to investing a little into renovating the flat as well.

Now, we look forward to sipping tea while looking at the lake from the balcony while enjoying the glorious morning sunshine chasing interior designers/plumbers to get the renovation done fast and to pay a lovely fat EMI for the next 8-10 years.

PS - The intention of this blog is more of journalling my experience as always. It may also provide a practical guide on how the housing market is in Bangalore. I hope this was helpful or informative and some of these principles would apply to any city in India.