Looking for a property/apartment leads to all sorts of questions. And, then there is the latent exasperation around why builders don't have a standard format when publishing specifications. For example, you look at electronic items - TV, toaster, microwave ovens, refrigerator and what not and you'd notice that there is this somewhat familiar way of explaining the power ratings, the power consumption ratings, the capacity and so forth. Not so when it comes to apartments. You'd have to grapple with notions of sale-able area, carpet area that includes/excludes terrace, flat area that implies an inclusion of the car parking area, absence of the percentage of the total land that forms the super-built up area, the somewhat ill formed write-up on the maintenance charges per square feet and the list goes on. Then of course there are the myriad 'certifications' and appraisals each project touts in order to demonstrate the 'state of the art' (I thought that this word went out of fashion post Rajiv Gandhi era). This doesn't even include the need to be clear about the municipal zones the property is under.

Having done this twice (yes, we just settled on something at Pune) the only somewhat easy route has been the financing institution (LICHFL this time as well). Ahh well ! Let's see how things go in the future in terms of possession of the property.