Returned to Bangalore, India

Very recently, one of the readers asked me this “my hubby wants to build an independent house and settle down in Bangalore (now in USA)..but i keep reading in newspapers abt robberies and stuff so am not able to make decision about this . Can u share ur thoughts regarding this.”

This post covers my thoughts on the topic. I am going to go about this topic by listing the pros and cons of living in independent homes as against living in a community - this would include both the villa kind of communities and communities that house apartments.

Independent homes - Pros

1. You get to design the plan of your home. You can choose and dictate every detail of your home.
2. Most of the day-to-day shopping is likely to be within walking distance.
3. You are the boss of everything within your compound. So, you can have it the way you want it - mostly.
4. Depending on the location of your home, there is likely to be a lot of life right around your home. Vendors on the street, playing kids, noisy neighbors. You get to be a part of a lot of action in a way.

Independent homes - Cons

1. Security - These days, all you have to do is browse through any of the local papers to see the number of con-jobs and robberies that happen in broad day light. And of course the chain snatching etc that happen right around the corner of your “independant home”.
2. When the security is the prime concern when you are in town, we can only imagine the condition when you step out of town for a vacation. I know this because my parents have always lived in independant homes in Bangalore and from the time my parents and I moved into our own home, stepping out of town as a family was such a pain. Even the times that they visited us in the US, it was only after hiring a watchman for the night. And they happened to be lucky to find a reliable man for temporary periods.
3. Assuming you already own a site, this point is not relevant for you. But if you don’t, buying land can be very tricky. There are many cases of fraud where at the end of a deal, people are only left with the worth of the contract papers!
4. There is no guarantee that your neighbors will adhere to the building by-laws. None of the newer constructions leave the necessary space around their building structure. It is mostly because of all the bribing, and the ease with which you can break all the by-laws. What happens in the process? Lack of sufficient light and ventilation. On the same lines, you may run into various such issues with the immediate neighbors. Like when they decide to construct another floor and include the entire site in the floor plan of the new floor compromising heavily on the light that reaches the floor below.
5. Water scarcity issues. Again going by what my parents go through. Since it is just the 2 of them, the water is just about enough. Some of their neighbors have to almost always buy water.
6. Any repair job in and around the house is your responsibility.
7. While point #4 under pros is a plus, the same point can have its downside too - noisy neighbors, painful/intruding salesmen, traffic right outside etc.

Gated communities - Pros

1. These days since you get both villas and apartments in gated communities, you don’t have to necessarily go for independent homes on your own. You can instead choose to live in a villa with all the facilities offered by the community.
2. Some of the nice facilities that come as part of the communities are pool, spa, a place of worship, children’s park area, association maintained gardens, walking/jogging track, and of course round-the-clock security. Most of these are available by default in the bigger communities.
3. Children have friends and playmates right there within the community. More secure. No traffic as they hop over to their friends’ place for some play. (A big plus for me!)
4. A lot of group activities are arranged for within the community - this of course depends on the size of the community. The larger the community, more the options. For example, where we live, we have an art teacher coming to the community hall twice a week to teach the kids arts and crafts. A bunch of people interested in yoga have roped in a teacher to come in thrice a week. A couple of women are taking different kinds of summer classes for the kids right there in the building.
5. Garbage disposal, cleaning of your immediate surrounds are all mostly association owned and happen by default.
6. This may not mean much to some people, but to me staying on floors on the top means a lot. I get better views, better light, better glimpse of the sky etc. And of course not as many mosquitoes when you go up.
7. In a community, it feels safer to leave the windows open. When you do that at nights in independent homes, you are compromising heavily on the security. Again, from knowing it first hand.
8. Some of the communities are pretty huge and you will be completely removed from your outside. This will help keep the noise, traffic exhaust fumes, and visual pollution a little at bay.
9. The biggest plus is that you can step out of home or go out of town and ‘mostly’ not be concerned about the security of your home. Most of the communities have professional security folks who are there round the clock. Going out of town would just be with a lock of the front door.

Gated communities - Cons

1. It is always going to be a shared property.. There is only so much of freedom you are going to have with the plan/design etc. The good thing is that some of the high end developers do give you this, that, and the other when it comes to the floor plans and the materials used.
2. A fairly high association fee - in good communities with good facilities it is about Rs.1/- to Rs 1.5/- per square foot of the house. So, for a 2000 sq ft home, you will pay an association fee of about Rs. 3000/-.
3. Some of the communities are pretty huge and while this may have its pros, please see the point #7 above under pros, you will be completely removed from your outside. That would also mean no dashing in and out of your local grocer, no vegetable vendors bringing their wares to your door stop. And such. But of course you have many smaller communities that will still have access to the facilities of the local neighborhood in spite of being gated. And some of the larger communities try to provide some of these neighborhood facilities inside the community itself.

Now, if we leave the independant homes and developed communities aside, you still have one other option and that would be the gated layouts, where you have some of the facilities of the communities such as security, club house, gym, pool etc, but still get to own a piece of land and construct your own home according to your needs and design sense. Please consider those too before deciding on where is it that you may want to live. All the best with the search and settling down.

For more info, feel free to ask questions. Or if you have any opinion to share with the readers, please do, and I will include valid/relevant points to the post.

PS: Irrespective of the choice you make, please know that Bangalore is extremely expensive. The real estate prices are sky high.

Filed under: home, plan, city life, shopping, grocery, living choices, neighborhood, neighbors, Bangalore living, security, Independant homes, Family, Children, apartments, villas, neighorhoods, gated communities, layouts, Bangalore