Buying/selling a house is a nightmare :(

All these amusing real estate experiences are anecdotal and may not be useful to you. However, it is a depiction of what happens in the real estate market and could become some kind of a learning.

It may or may not work for you, so that is the caveat.

I have been looking to buy a house in Nerul, a suburb of Navi Mumbai. This would be about 40 km from the central business district called Nariman Point, which for most people is SoBo (South Bombay -- many of them still have not reconciled to Mumbai).

So Nerul could be an unwanted, eastern suburb of Mumbai, but if you hear about the real estate prices in this part of the world you would think you are in Manhattan.

Anyways. Here are some amusing experiences that buyers and sellers of residential units witness every day.

1. Brokers are the only ones chasing you. Literally unemployed from dawn to dusk, they chase you with houses which could be much beyond your budget, or much smaller in size, or at a location which you have specifically said NO to.

2. We wanted to buy in one colony called Army Colony, Nerul. We met people asking for Rs 1.55 crore and another person asking for Rs 2.1 crore for a SIMILAR house, with same level of interior work done. Amazing! But no deals have happened there in the past six months, so pricing is just a number in the sky.

3. We saw a 2500 sq ft house priced at Rs 7 crore and a 2000 sq ft house, about 700 metres away, that did not have any buyers even for Rs 1.8 crore. I believe he has now UPPED THE offer to Rs 2.1 (my broker was laughing). :P

But hey if he wants to sell, he wants to. If he does not want to sell, he does not want to!!

4. One lady is trying to sell a 3 bhk for Rs 1.56 crore and buy a 1 bhk. Her best offer is Rs 1.46 crore for the flat she wants to sell and she cannot get a 1 bhk for anything less than Rs 77 lakh! Amusing. Demand and supply I guess.

5. There are people in the market who come regularly to feel ratified that their house is quoting at a particular rate. No intentions of selling, aise hi, time pass kar liya... :-)

6. If you think selling a house is difficult, it is so damn true. Buying a house with a budget in a particular location, of a particular size, is a good damn pain in the erm... neck!

7. All the real estate websites are infested with brokers' offers.

8. Brokers lie. One broker said the deal is closed, but the seller had not even heard of this broker.

I can go on and on... Instead I want YOU to add YOUR home buying / selling nightmare experiences HERE :-)

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com