Property Decoder

🌻Announcement🌻 A Small Change, A Bigger Purpose After much thought (and a fair share of nervous excitement), I’m making a small but meaningful shift. I started this account on X with a simple intention: to share my learnings, question dominant narratives, and connect with people trying to make sense out of complexities around real estate in India, beyond just glossy brochures and narrative hype. Over time, I realised how one-sided and supply-driven most real estate discourse is, often fueled by FOMO, half-truths, greed, and promotional hype – majorly focusing on pushing sales rather than addressing buyers’ voice/needs or empowering them to take informed decisions. There were moments I genuinely considered stepping away. Because real estate has long been the most uncomfortable zone for me, not due to any problem wrt this need based asset, but because of the ecosystem around it which often feels opaque, fake and disturbingly anti-consumer. Yet, for many in the industry, that’s just business as usual. Though the presence of bad actors has made trust hard to come by, but those who bought wisely have fulfilled their needs and also seen real value creation over time. What kept me going, despite all the doubts and dilemmas, was the thoughtful support and encouragement I received from family, friends, and many of you who have been engaging with me since the beginning. Some even pushed me to take it a step further, to get my hands dirty and build something more meaningful. For that, I’m genuinely grateful. So today, I’m doing just that. Soon this account will no longer carry the name “Indian Real Estate Index.” It marks the beginning of a new phase - still rooted in the same core values: 👉 Clarity over noise 👉 Ground truths over narratives opium 👉 Putting the buyer’s voice first because that’s where I’ve mostly been If you’ve found value in what I’ve shared so far, I hope you’ll continue to be part of what’s next. The journey ahead is going to be more focused, more structured, and hopefully, far more impactful. 🙏 Thank you for reading, engaging, and helping shape this. See you on the other side :)

Godrej Oasis Society, Gurugram have increased Maintenance charge from ₹5 to ₹8 / Sq feet, Residents opposing it. Meanwhile in Hyd, Charges are ₹2.5 / 4

It's year 2 of me living in Gurgaon, the so-called global city and here are a few observations. Trash is everywhere. On the streets, in front of homes, metro stations, malls. There are more thekas( shops selling alcohol) than pharmacies, and medicine shops. The closest pharmacy

Her observation is very much in line with the ground reality of Gurugram. Just move a few hundred meters inside the much-celebrated Golf Course Road, and the contrast becomes hard to ignore. Yesterday, while passing through Sector 56 market, saw cattle wandering around the shops, their front with stinking sewerage wetland, and dust blowing around everywhere. It made me stop, take this picture to record how despite being hyped so much in selling most costliest luxury housing, most of Gurugram is still stuck in Gur'gaon'.

How about linking atleast 25% of a homebuyer's payments to the actual quality of construction, instead of merely the project's construction progress till OC? Final instalments should be released only after the project has been delivered and its construction quality has been independently certified by a reputed third-party testing agency, not merely because an Occupancy Certificate (OC) has been issued by the authorities. Because we tend to see a lot that builders even after receiving OC, delivers project with sub-par finishing quality, opposite of what was shown in 3D renders. If builders are truly confident about the quality of what they deliver, they shouldn't have any objection to such a system. Govt. should do this. No?

Don’t fall for the scale illusion! Can you tell from the attached image that the central lawn in the second layout is roughly the same size as the entire plot in the first? Most people can’t — because we view both large and small sites at the same display size (paper, smartphone, computer, etc.), which distorts the sense of scale. In small plots, the gaps between towers and open spaces look deceptively large; in large plots, those same gaps look deceptively small. The layouts in the image are Yula Globus Neo (4.36 acres) vs My Home Nishada (16.68 acres). This illusion only exists when we view layouts on a screen or on paper. It completely vanishes once we visit the site — which is one reason projects like My Home Bhooja gained much more traction once people started visiting in person, compared to when they were only looking at the site plan. Several large projects — such as Aparna Moonstone, My Home Sayuk, and Prestige City Apartments — are being underrated due to this scale illusion, while smaller projects are being overestimated.

🚨Haryana plans to link contractor payments with the quality of construction work, instead of only project completion.

Hyderabad is moving towards overtaking Bengaluru in terms of traffic. Day by Day so many reels made on how bad Hyderabad traffic is turning out to be !!