Travails of house hunting - Part II

Well I promised a part II (read part I HERE) and here it is. ok!! u guys can stop saying "why oh why does she keep her promises and torture us with meanningless posts!! :P".

So where was I? Ah!! yes. Brokers. As we decided that we would definitely need a broker to help us, help poured in from all corners and we were flooded with the numbers of brokers all of whom were willing to show us “super houses in ‘dee-jent’ localities and very 'reasonable' rent”. These broker guys earn more than what we do and I have decided that the day I get completely bored of software and everything else that I have ever been interested in I will become a broker. I mean just look at the figures. If they are able to “sell” a good house to someone they get a months rent as broker fees. Now assuming the rent is 7000 (minimum) this guy gets 7000 bucks and just by selling 5 or even 4 houses a month he earns a cool tax free 28 to 30K a month. How cool is that? All u need is some marketing skills and a vehicle (sun screen if u r in chennai!! :P) and as we became experienced in dealing with brokers we began to understand how the minds of these guys work and I have complied a small dictionary of the lingo which these brokers use.

What they say :super house, very less rent, locality oooook
actual meaning: the house is great but you will have shop keepers, plumbers and electricians as neighbours and they only drink 5 times a week and beat their wives only when they are drunk

What they say : super house, super locality, rent ok.
actual meaning: the house is great, locality impeccable but u must give an arm and a leg for advance, an eye for the rent and the other arm as broker fees

What they say :central locality, right opposite to coffee day
actual meaning: next to coffee day there is a road, take the first left, third right then the second left and now if u hold a compass the north will point towards coffee day. Right behind na??

What they say : if the broker has a vehicle and says “only a little distance madam. I will come by vehicle. U can walk”
actual meaning: buy a water bottle, hiking shoes and be prepared to walk for 5 kms on winding roads while mr. broker drives his vehicle slowly ahead of u and keeps saying “idho vandhiruchu”

What they say :if the broker doesn’t have a vehicle and says “ayyo. Very far. Must take an auto”
actual meaning: the house is less than 200 metres away.

All these brokers have this amazing ability to portray the dingiest and dirtiest of houses as taj mahals and their marketing skills never fail to amaze me. I mean u do need some guts to call a house which smells worse than a public urinal, looks worse than vijaykanth’s and TR’s face put together as “super veedu”. And the best part is that when u tell them u r not interested they will look at u with a sad expression on their face saying “inniku pona nalaiku irrukadhu. Nalla veedu miss panareenga. Unglakku vendam na sollungo naraya customers waiting la irrukaanga” as if Bill clinton and APJ had wanted that house but the broker had said "No!! i will give it only to Revathi Ramanan!!". :-\

The result of all these skirmishes with brokers is that the cell phones of four young pretty girls (errr… us) which should ideally contain the numbers of cute looking guys now contains the numbers of 20 odd brokers all of whom are useless and haven’t succeeded in showing us a single decent place. Which means we are still house less so if any of u guys know of any good single bedroom houses in and around thiruvanmiyur and adyar area do drop in a comment. Errr. No. we wont pay u broker fees but you will be blessed by 4 young and pretty things (us again!! :P) that the day u start searching houses u should get one as soon as possible without the help of brokers!! ;)

Travails of house hunting - part I

If you are above the age of 22 and working in a city where your parents don’t live, you would have definitely gone through the ordeal of finding a decent house to live in, gone through the ordeal of dealing with obnoxious brokers, irritating house owners and nosy neighbors. Recently we were asked to evict our house of one year, given a notice of one month and asked to find another house to live in because our house owner’s son wanted to occupy the house. Then began the Herculean task of finding a good house to live in. Now when u are talking about 4 girls living alone there are obviously a couple of basic things to take into consideration.

1. proximity to office
2. no wine shops within half kilometer radius of the house
3. decent neighbors who wouldn’t look at you like they have never seen a girl ever before in their life
4. decent residential area inhabited by people of your kind

Now the trouble with our basic requirements was that these were the basic requirements of everyone searching for a house and hence such houses were very very few in number and after wasting a week thinking we would definitely get something we realized it wasn’t going to be an easy task. So my friends and I who have no clue what 7 am (or for that matter 8,9 and 10 am. :P) on a weekend looks like, have no clue where the classifieds section in a newspaper is, got up at 6 o clock last Saturday, bought all the newspapers and free ads we could lay our hands on and started short listing houses which would match our specifications.

Here is where I introduce you to a breed of humanity which in the disguise of a blessing is nothing but a menace to the society and especially to young people looking for houses. Brokers. In the past one week my friends and I have seen them all. Fat brokers, thin brokers, greedy brokers, stingy brokers, revolting brokers, seemingly friendly and completely unfriendly brokers. Having dealt with this menace the first time we were on the lookout for a house this time we were very keen to avoid them and hoped we would get a house without their assistance. Wrong!! The first lesson we learnt was that when u see ads like the following don’t get excited

Single bedroom house, rent rs 6000, III main road Gandhi nagar, brokers excuse, no advance

Now III main road Gandhi nagar is a wonderful locality and getting a house for 6000 bucks and no advance and broker fees there is something inconceivable and we obviously got excited, called the owner and at 7 the same day set out in search of the house. As we walked on III main road, saw the amazing buildings, beautiful apartments and tree lined roads, mentally we had already started living in the house, even making note of the vegetable vendors, proximity to the bus stand and other facilities in the area. Finally we reached old no 3, III main road which is where the owner lived.

It was a beautiful duplex house, with a nice garden and a friendly looking dog. (We even decided what we would call the dog!! Sigh!!) And then the owner took us behind his house to this rundown place which had last seen a coat of paint when India got its independence. The way to the “house” for rent was a long winding dungeon like passage which could hold only one person (a thin one, a fat person would have to walk sideways. :-\) at a time and we went in a single file to see the house. Personally I thought that like miners we should have carried a canary or candle to ascertain the oxygen levels in that passage and I am sure the candle would have blown out and the canary would have died on entering the house. :-\. Anyway it was a sad house with cracked tiles, cobwebs hanging from every corner and the toilets in trains were like mansions when compared to the bathroom.

We were desperate for a house to live in but not that desperate. It was then that realization dawned on us that searching for a house for rent in Chennai without the help of a broker is as difficult as getting some work done in government offices without giving bribes. It was impossible. Our experience with the brokers deserves another post and this one is getting way too long anyway. Will write about that travails of house hunting – part II