Don't Fall for These 4 Real Estate Traps

2) Discounts and freebies

Offering discounts and freebies have become common practice for developers. They often give discounts and freebies like gold coins, club membership, parking space, holiday packages and so on to attract home buyers. Most home buyers happily accept such offers to save money. For instance, a car park alone comes for 1-10 lakh and getting it as a gift entice buyers to fix a deal. Even there are developers who started offering payment for stamp duty and registration charges that ranges between 5 and 12 percent of the total property value.

In reality-

Several developers charge for parking space when booking a house buy in actual they cannot do so, according to Supreme Court ruling of 2010. Only to obey the apex court’s ruling, some developers do not charge for parking space but add the value with the super built-up area which in turn increases the total value of the house. And the rule is same for rest of the freebies or discounts developers tend to offer. All together, freebies are just to tempt buyers; in actual they do not get any real benefits.

"A good way to determine whether these freebies are added to the cost of the house is by comparing the price of the property to similar ones in the vicinity. If there isn't much of a difference, opting for the builder to pay the stamp duty and registration costs can be to your benefit. In case of other things, insist on a cash discount rather than the freebies," explained Pankaj Kapoor, managing director, Liases Foras.

Also Read: 11 Most Expensive Cities to Buy a Home