House Hunting

The first thing we did when we got to Hyderabad was to start looking for an apartment and a motorcycle. The first day, we went to look at two bikes, one of which happened to be in an area that we were quite keen on. As we were driving around looking for ‘to let’ signs, we saw an apartment building (Greenwood Residency) built by the same people as the building where Gopal’s sister currently lives. He researched and chose that building and was quite impressed by this company and their standard of work. We drove up and asked if they had any flats to rent.

We were told they had two 2BHK (that’s 2 bedroom, hall and kitchen) apartments and were taken to see them. Both were still very much under construction, with guys working in them, lots of dust and plaster everywhere, and very dirty. The first one had a nice view to the east of some rice paddies, while the second one had a view of the interior courtyard. The second one also had some very ugly designs on the built-in wardrobes – one room had hideous stripes, the other some floral pattern. We were impressed with the complex itself though – nice and peaceful and with a lovely pool. But they were asking around 8k per month for these apartments, which lacked basic necessities like A/C, mosquito mesh and hot water cylinders, so we moved on.

We looked up a number of other apartment buildings by the same group, Modi Properties. Each time, we would tell them we were looking for something fully furnished and that we wanted to move in straight away. They would say sure, and take us to see a couple of apartments. None of them were what you could call fully furnished or move-in ready. None had mosquito mesh, A/Cs or hot water heaters. Most didn’t have any light fittings, some didn’t even have any kitchen cupboards or counters and a few were missing their built-in wardrobes.

Several though did have gaudy paint jobs, puja rooms (sort of a prayer/shrine room usually just off the kitchen) and servant’s quarters on the roof!

The worst we saw was actually back at Greenwood Residency again. An agent at one of the other properties told us he had a 3BHK apartment that was furnished and ready to move into so we went to take a look. We waited an hour for him to show up (not unusual) and then another half hour while they tried to find the keys. Since the keys couldn’t be found, he told us he could show us another similar apartment so we could get an idea of the layout – the same apartment two floors above the one we came to see. By this time it was dark, and when we got there, we found it had no power. We used my cellphone as a crude torch and found that the inside was completely unfinished – no floors, no walls, no ceilings, just bare concrete and lots of cement dust. They hadn’t even finished cutting out the windows and doorways from the concrete slabs. It was too dark to even get an idea of the layout – we told them we probably would have gotten a better idea from viewing a floor plan.

As well as looking at Modi, we also went to a number of other similar apartment blocks asking if they had any ‘to let’. We looked at places with names like GK Habitat Royale and Anthem Vistas. We thought that going further out of the city would make things cheaper, but it proved not to be the case. The ones further out were super fancy, and 10 times what we could afford.

We also spent a lot of time googling places to let, calling up and then arranging to go see them. Some we could rule out straight away (next to a mosque and backside to a temple). Sometimes we were told that the place had already been ‘filled up’. Other times, we had to wait days for the owner to get back to us. Other times we would go there, and take one look at the neighbourhood and not even go inside. Many of the places were very dirty. To us it seems basic that if you are trying to rent or sell something, you clean it up, but that wasn’t common. Others were too small, or too big and expensive.

When we ran out of places to google, we started to simply drive around areas we quite liked and call any ‘to let’ signs posted on the gates. We did find a few that were contenders through that method. One would have been great but it was still under construction and wouldn’t be ready for several weeks. Another couple were on the top floor of their buildings and so would be very hot in summer.

After a week of this, we were starting to consider the possibility of going elsewhere, but we thought we would have one more try. We’d seen a few places that had potential but were too expensive. We were prepared to pay more for something fully furnished, but getting an unfurnished place means having to buy all our furniture, A/C, mosquito mesh, maybe hot water cylinders, and so the rent should be lower. We decided to call the agent and see if perhaps one of the owners would be a bit more reasonable.

And we were in luck! We moved in just a week after we arrived in Hyderabad. Details will follow in the next post :)