Mumbai is the city that has always offered more than what I have expected in my life. This was the city where I grew up and spent my childhood and became the person that I am today. I don’t want to mention myself as a bigot who has achieved something extraordinary in his life and is too proud of it, but this city has certainly offered me more than I expected.
How Did I End Up Buying One of The Most Beautiful Housing Properties In Mumbai?
I have been living currently in Austin, Texas and working as a professor at the University of Texas, Austin as well as a consulting director at my wife’s IT firm for the last 2 decades.
I was a Mumbai boy, who had the option of gaining a good education throughout his life and after completing my Ph.D. From the University of Texas I joined the University as an assistant professor and settled here before the start of this millennium. But I have always missed my country and especially my city Mumbai.
My wife is an Indian-American who has lived her entire life in the USA and has heard only stories from me about my childhood in India. Even my parents have moved with me to the States almost a decade ago and the most we have been to India is for weddings of my cousins who still live there.
I have never been able to show my wife and kid every nook and corner of this beautiful city where I have spent almost half of my life. Although my kids think Mumbai is all about slums after watching the Oscar-winning movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, I want to show them a different side of the city.
I know that Mumbai, India is a very expensive city even when compared to living in Austin, Texas and the real estate prices are sky-high, as it was even when I lived there. But the higher education cost over here in the USA is much more than India and I want my kids to complete their education from IIT, Mumbai where I studied.
I have been looking for resale flats in Mumbai, India where I and my family or my kids can stay while they live in Mumbai or when we visit Mumbai. As I have heard that the new projects in Mumbai for real estate are only for billionaires.
The bigger problem is that looking for good resale flats in Mumbai is itself a very big problem when you are staying in Austin which is almost the other part of the world. There are many problems which may arise while looking for new projects in Mumbai too like:
- Resale flats in Mumbai may be cheap but other factors like age of the property or the design of the flat or the community or area are safe for a living cannot be determined properly from Austin, USA.
- The same goes for new projects in Mumbai as there are cases of frauds and scams where they would take advance and later you will find out that there was no project happening in the first place.
- Resale flats in Mumbai can have some prior taxes or loan disputes as well as community disputes by the previous owner so that risk is also present.
- Most of all the highest charge one has to pay for resale flats in Mumbai or new projects in Mumbai is the brokerage fees, which astoundingly high.
Due to all these reasons at some point in time, I had to revaluate my decision of buying property in Mumbai.
This is when one of my college friends from Mumbai came up with the idea of Housing.com. Although there are numerous real estate websites in India that were already there I was pretty unsure about depending on a website to invest in a property back home in India from the USA.
Anyways I gave a try to the website as it was highly recommended by my friend and I was awestruck to see the vast amount of features it boasted. The website Housing.com was not only meant for buying but renting was also an option with features like:
- Flats for bachelors
- Flats with a great nightlife
- Flats with great commute and
I could have also searched for resale flats in Mumbai, India or new projects in Mumbai with a guarantee by the website that I was not being cheated. Some of the amazing filters that I could apply in my search were:
- Number of BHK’s required
- Number of bathrooms required
- Whether the property RERA compliant which helps to protect you against frauds and scams
- Whether the listing is provided by the owner or broker or the developer
- Is the property ready to move or under construction
- The direction of the face of the property for Vaastu.
- The age of the property as well as a type like an independent house, apartment, penthouse, duplex, studio and many more.
- The amenities provided by the property like swimming pool, gated community, gym, etc.
These features by Housing.com provided me with a sigh of relief and very soon I was able to find my dream property in the city of dreams, Mumbai.
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