What interested me during various trips to the USA was the presence of realtors, mostly women, who handle the ‘real estate’ business as we call it. These are young or middle-aged women, charming, with a wealth of information up their sleeves, tough as a nail but friendly and smiling even when they have to make an unpleasant point. If you want to buy a house or build one, you better approach one of these realtors who are listed in each town/city in the yellow pages or in the telephone directory or websites.
I found that practically every prospective buyer of an old house, new one or yet to be built house, needs plenty of cash, which is generally in short supply. This only means one applies for a loan from a bank or other financial institution. While a small cash down is needed, the rest is taken as a loan from the bank. The procedure for applying a loan is easy with one or two simple forms to be filled up showing personal as well one’s financial details. Rarely they ask for proof other than the attached documents. The person who wants a loan walks into a bank, where he/she generally does the banking and meets the manager along with the realtor. There is not much of a delay as the bank decides within a matter of a day or two with an assurance the mortgage would be approved and the realtor/prospective house owner could proceed further. Even if there is a delay of a few hours, the realtor, might sarcastically remark to the person applying for the mortgage, “What took the guy so long to decide?”
‘Open House’ is a good idea of seeing for oneself how a house looks. This is useful for those who would like to buy that house which is on sale or get ideas about a new house he/she intends to buy or build. On that day, anyone could walk into the house and see for oneself the layout /state of the house. In fact, the owner of that house, which he/she has put up for sale, could be still living there in anticipation of the sale.
Neat placards in front of a house could announce it is up for sale, the detailed plan and expected price safely kept inside a plastic jacket, placed helpfully for everyone to see in the mailbox in front. Mostly, such sales are arranged through realtors, as they know how to get a good price for a property. The name of the realtor with contact telephone number is displayed on the placard on the lawn that is put up for sale, unless the owner himself / herself opts to do the negotiations and finalise the sales agreement.
If a builder states, “I shall complete the house in 90 days,” he means it. There is a penalty clause in the agreement between the owner and builder when this is not fulfilled, which happens rarely. Moreover, some builders give a guarantee for their work for a period of one to five years, when any defect due to poor construction would be rectified free of cost by the builder. The town council plays an important in seeing that a new construction is done as per standard designs and within laid down laws. Inspectors visit the site of construction at various stages to make sure the builder is sticking to the rules and laws governing such a construction.
A point that is worth noting is that there is no whiff of corrupt dealings in any of the steps leading to the construction of the house. Inspectors do their job routinely and without creating any problems to the builder.
Materials used are all standard and off-the shell-items, which makes construction easier. Special precautions are taken in the tornado/hurricane affected regions to make houses strong enough to withstand nature’s fury. We need to make our rules and laws for owning /building a house in India simpler, more transparent with proper and honest dealings.
