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In these challenging times, all business sectors are going through a hard time and real estate is no exception. With real estate prices stabilised or even showing a slight dip, developers are going all out to dispose their unsold inventory at prices less than what they were before the pandemic began, making this a good time to start scouting around for bargain deal for owning your dream home. Even individual sellers in need of money are willingly giving discounts on their properties in the form of genuine distress sales. In this article, we will share some tips on how to negotiate when buying a house during the pandemic and also what are the things that you should avoid. uptown insignia mohali
Beware of “lockdown schemes”
In a hurry to sell of their unsold inventory, builders have begun offering several schemes to convince customers into buying a residential property in their project. One such scheme is offering customised payment plans, while cleverly refraining from reducing the price of the property. If it’s an under construction project, the builders are asking for just 10% booking amount and the rest to be paid as installments as the project progresses. If your full amount or your down payment along with home loan sanction letter is ready, we suggest that you negotiate hard for a significant reduction in the price of a ready possession house rather than accepting any scheme of the builder in their under construction project, or even settling for free parking or club membership. uptown insignia zirakpur mohali
Avoid investing in under construction property
Due to the adverse conditions created by the pandemic for the real estate industry, the housing regulation body RERA has given a six months extension to builders for completing their under construction projects and giving possession to those who have bought apartments in them. Also, the RERA in different states has the power to offer an additional extension to builders for three months. This means that the completion and handover of under construction projects will be delayed. We suggest that you negotiate with builders only for houses that are ready-to-move-in with OC, or Occupation Certificate, duly received. Builders will also prefer this as it will improve their cash flow which they can deploy in completing their under construction projects.
Make a detailed assessment of market rate and returns
If you’re looking for buying a residential property purely as an investment, then you should do a detailed assessment of the movement of the property prices from at least a year before the pandemic till date. Compare the price offered today with the pre-pandemic price and will will know the price advantage that you’re getting. We feel that you should get up to 30% discount on the pre-pandemic price, which will result in significant savings which you can use for the interior decoration. However, if you’re negotiating with a builder and there are few units up for sale in the project, then you will have very little scope for bargaining.
Compare other projects in the same area
After you have finalised the house configuration that you are looking for, you should scout your area for all units of the configuration being offered for sale, both from individual sellers as well as ready possession homes from builders. Due to the pandemic, your interaction with prospective sellers will largely happen online. However, once you’ve finalised the properties, and before giving the token amount or signing the agreement, you should physically inspect the property to ensure that the current possession is authorised and also verify the name on the property share certificate and cross check the same with the society manager. If the seller is offering parking, make sure he has a valid parking letter duly issued by the society, and physical verification of the parking, which shows the flat number next to it, is a must.
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