Going Flat-hunting in Chennai

Man has evolved over time and his needs and wants have changed from time to time. There was a time when he would settle for a nice leg of dinosaur meat whereas now living in a gluten free, fat free, carbo-free diet is all the rage now..The next step in this evolution would be food-free. But one thing that hasn't changed over the years has been the need for shelter. Sure, we have come a long way from fur-covered cave floors and mudhouses to living in high-rises and duplex houses. But you get what I am saying. We all want shelter and a comfortable shelter at that. (leave apart the fact that we screw over other living things in the meanwhile)

Being of marriageable age, the first thing that any salaried young person(mostly male) of this generation sees is to where and how to purchase a place to call it their own. With the way real estate has been recently, people are scrambling to search, locate and buy a house that is within their budgets(or rather the loan limits that the banks are willing to trust us with).

I too joined the bandwagon recently, not because I needed a place, but purely based on doing what everyone else does. So my exodus started. I joined the team at office and outside friends on their site visits to upcoming apartments both inside the city and on the outskirts. I heard terms like floor-rise, pre-emis, carpet area, ccp, stilt parking, corpus fund all swim over my head during these conversations. I too nodded, acting knowledgeably but simply couldnt make heads or tails of what they were talking about.

All that I seemed to look whenever I went to see any half constructed building was the model apartment, the interiors, the view etc. Mundane stuff to the serious buyers but exciting stuff to me. My journey took me to all the prominent builders in the city. Man , Are they out to screw us or what.

Take for example my recent visit last week to a couple of projects happening on the OMR. We went as a group of five, all packed tighter together than a stack of chips in the Pringles box. At the first place, we slowly unwound ourselves and untangled our bodies and got in to the sales office. The layout was huge and they had cleverly put their sales office at the very end of the layout so that we get impressed and bowled over by the size of the layout.

The technical details were all being discussed in detail by the other guys( the serious buyers) and as usual I had nothing else to do( except nod knowingly ). When it looked like the questions were coming to an end, I asked the only question that I had. " Can I see the model apartment"

The Sales guy took a glance at me and immediately recognized me for what I am . A joy seeking voyeur who just wanted to glance at the flat and not worthy of the sales effort. But luckily my colleagues joined in and requested to see the flat as well. Phew..thanks guys.

He nodded his head to say no" the model flat isnt ready yet". That was interesting. I went back and did some research. About 45% of the layout had been sold out already and they had did that without having a model flat. Impressive? No. It was purely out of the brand name that they had. After the serious buyers left their numbers and contact details we all packed in the small car again( later I realized, my "friends" had filled in my details in the contacts form...Friends...you cant live without them...you die because of them)

The second place that we visited was a step up in terms of the pricing and brand equity. It typically showed in the off-handed way that the sales guy was treating us. We decided to have fun and kept battering him for details and pooh-poohing his statements about Unavailability of certain stuff that we wanted. By the time we left, the sales guy was confused whether we were serious buyers or window-shoppers and kept giving details about upcoming projects which would satisfy our requirements. We kept a straight face and walked out.

The last place that we visited was the highlight of the day. It was possibly the most expensive layout in that piece of road and brand equity of the builder was sky-high. It was a name recognizable not only in our city but across India. Just before entering we had lowered the window on the passenger side. We had made a pact to act as professional and as high-funda as possible. Lady Luck was and is a bitch. Pam( that's the name of my car ) decided to play hookey. The window wouldnt rise up as we parked in the vast parking area in front of the marketing office. Whatever image that we wanted to project was seriously shot to hell as three guys tired pulling the window up from inside the car door frame.

Finally we walked in to the office( leaving the window wide open ) deciding to salvage whatever little image that we had. One of my colleagues openly gaped at a BMW coupe parked. We shot him a glance to say" SHUT UP" and entered the office. One has seen offices and then one has to see this office. This was the epitome of all sales offices ever. Normally one gets carried away by the model apartment but the look and the grandeur of the sales office was enough to silence us.

Sure enough, a tired and holier-than-thou sales lady came to greet us. She must have quickly assessed that the possibility of one of us buying a flat here was equivalent to Chennai getting a snowstorm. But I do appreciate her. She went through the motions, with reduced vigor but nevertheless the long sales spiel. She didnt sit us down and talk through the details as its normally done but quickly proceeded to what she guessed was our main intention of walking in.

She took us to the model apartment. One word described it. AWESOME. We were left speechless with the way the entire flat was done and she walked through the whole layout making a 30 second power walk, what usually she would be doing for 30 minutes. " This is the bedroom, that is another bedroom...and that is one another bedroom" Frankly we didnt even deserve that.

As if that wasnt enough she had the audacity and gall to take us to a bigger and better apartment. If all doubts of whether we were the right clientele existed for her before, it was quickly dispelled. We were open-mouthedly gaping at the grandeur and the richness with which the entire flat had been done up with.

We offered the same sweet nothings, gathered the pamphlets and started for the door. Something stopped me and I turned her and asked her for another brochure and payment plan. She turned, tiringly to the security guard and said," Give another brochure to them" and walked off. That off-handedness and casual dismissal rubbed me wrong.

So I have decided. I shall definitely buy a flat there. Even if it takes me my entire lifetime ( by the looks of it, it really shall) and my entire salary goes to paying it. Seriously I would need two..make it three salaries to pay the monthly EMI. It comes close to a lac.

So I arrived at this second plan. It involves some explosives, a good getaway car, some weapons and a bank with a fully stocked vault...any volunteers??