Before you leave the house

• Email ahead and ask for the list of genuinely unsold units in the tower you are interested in.
• Take the cost sheet you were emailed, so you can check quoted numbers against written ones on the spot.
• Take the floor plan and the site layout, so you can locate the unit relative to the road, the generator and the sewage treatment plant.
• Take the registration number, so you can ask to see the certificate on site.
• Plan to arrive by the route you would actually use daily, at roughly the time you would use it.
• Block two hours. A twenty-minute visit is a tour, not an inspection.

On site: the physical checks

• The actual unit — Ask to see your floor and facing, even if it is bare structure. The view, the noise and the morning light are properties of the unit, not of the sample flat.
• Sample flat versus specification — Ask which items in the room you are standing in are in the standard specification. Sample flats commonly use furniture at reduced scale and finishes above the standard.
• Carpet area, physically — Take a tape measure if you can. Compare what you measure against the carpet area on the cost sheet.
• Water — Municipal supply, borewell, treated water, tankers, or a mix. Ask for the current dependency in writing and ask residents of a delivered phase what summer is like.
• Power backup — How many KVA per flat, and does it run the whole flat or only lights and fans?
• Ventilation and shafts — Look at where the kitchen and bathroom shafts sit, and whether the unit gets cross ventilation. This is very hard to fix later.
• Noise — Main road, arterial junction, railway line, flight path, or a generator directly below. Stand still for a minute and listen.
• Parking — Where the space actually is, whether it is covered, and how tight the ramp and the column spacing are.
• Lifts — Number of lifts per tower and per flat count. A tower with too few lifts is a permanent daily irritation.
• Construction stage — Count the floors cast and look for finishing work and labour on site. A structure-stage tower will not be habitable in three months.
• The site against the plan — Tower count, floor count, setbacks and open space. More towers than the sanctioned plan needs an explanation and a revised sanction.

The questions worth asking on site

• Which unit numbers are actually unsold in this tower today?
• What did the last unit in this configuration sell for, and when?
• Which amenities are built, which are under construction, and which are on a later phase?
• What is the monthly maintenance per square foot, and how many months are collected upfront?
• Which banks have approved this project for home loans?
• What is the registered completion date for this phase, and what is the delay compensation?
• Can I see the RERA certificate, the sanctioned plan, and — if it is ready — the occupancy certificate?
• Is there EV charging provision, and is it charged separately?

The conversation that tells you the most

Walk into a delivered phase, away from the sales office, and talk to somebody who lives there. Ask about water in April, lift breakdowns, how long snags took to fix after handover, how maintenance is billed, and whether parking is a problem. Ten minutes of that is worth more than the entire site tour, and no sales team can stage it.

If the project has no delivered phase, go and see the developer's last completed project instead, and have the same conversation there.

The pressure, and how to handle it

Expect a closing attempt: a price valid only today, a unit being held for someone else, a small blocking amount that is 'fully refundable'. Some of it is true and none of it should change your decision on a first visit. A property that is worth ₹1 crore on Sunday is worth ₹1 crore on Tuesday.

If a refundable token is genuinely being offered, ask for the refund terms in writing before you pay anything. If those terms cannot be put in writing, you have learned something useful about the developer.

The same evening

Write it down while it is fresh: the unit number, the price quoted, the possession date you were told, the water answer, the three things you liked and the one thing that bothered you. After four site visits every project blurs into the same beige lobby, and the notes are the only thing that keeps your comparison honest.

If you cannot name a single flaw in a project you visited, you did not look hard enough — go back.

Frequently asked questions