Free Chennai Real Estate Buying Selling Investing Tips!

This is the second in a series of short blog posts on how to incorporate easy Vasthu tips for your home and office. Don't forget to subscribe to our blog to receive more useful tips regularly in your mailbox!

The Kitchen

The Kitchen is a place where you cook your everyday food. You must have to consider several factors, while constructing your house kitchen. You must be very considerable in placing the sink, location of the gas, refrigerator, gas cylinder, and more.


Essential Vastu tips for your house kitchen room:
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• The right place to set your kitchen is in the south-west corner. If you never find an apt position, then you can avail the alternative of locating it in the north-west corner.
• Building kitchen in North-east, mid-west, mid-north, mid-south, south-west or in the centre is strictly not recommended, as they are out of Vastu norms.
• Ensure that the cooking area never touches the sidewall of northern or eastern side.
• The right location to cook food is by setting it on the direction of east.
• Remember that taps and sinks should not be very close to the cooking range. Fire and water repel against each other.
• It's best to have the kitchen sink in the northeast direction. If there is a dishwasher in the kitchen, place it in the northwest side of the kitchen. The other water elements like drinking water should be placed in the northeast.
• Different electrical appliances also have to be kept at a right place in the kitchen, according to Vastu shastra. For example, if the refrigerator is placed inside the kitchen, then keep it in the southwest direction. Exhaust fans in the kitchen should always be fitted on the eastern walls in the southeast corner. Other electrical appliances, like microwave, should be put in the southeast corner.
• While constructing the kitchen, make adequate provision for cross ventilation. The big windows of the kitchen should be in the east direction, while the smaller ones should be towards the south.
• There should be no toilets adjoining, above or below the kitchen.

Rakindo Group has struck a deal with India's Appaswamy Real Estate to jointly develop large-sized residential projects in key locations of Kotturpuram and Pallikarnai in the Indian city of Chennai, according to a media report.

The projects, on 2.72 million sqft of land, are estimated to have a sale value of Rs2.5 billion (Dh193 million), the Economic Times reported.

Rakindo Group is a joint venture between Rakeen, a joint stock company promoted by the Government of Ras Al Khaimah, and the Trimex Group of India.

The company has been designing and developing properties and resorts in the Middle East, China, India and Europe.

Rakindo Group is making its debut in India with its $1.5 billion (Dh5.5bn) integrated township project in Coimbatore. Construction activity has been on for a while now.

According to a senior Rakindo official, integrated townships are its forte.

But as development in central business districts is not its core competence, the group decided to partner with Appaswamy Real Estate, its Managing Director Prasad Koneru told the paper.

Both the properties were purchased recently after long drawn negotiations but it is gleaned from the market that the deal between Appaswamy Real Estate and Rakindo Group was struck in August.

When contacted, Appaswamy Chief Operating Officer TSS Krishnan confirmed that the deal was concluded about a month ago. Two special purpose vehicles would be floated to execute the projects, Krishnan added.

Buying a home is one of the major decisions of one’s life and almost everybody who takes a home loan has to go to a bank or financial institution to get his home financed. The money involved in a home loan is often a very big sum. Government of India has given some tax benefits on home loans in India to decrease the burden of buying a home in India. Here are 5 important facts about these tax benefits.

1. Both interest and principal components of home loan attract tax benefits.Persons who have taken a loan to buy a home or for construction can claim these deductions under the section 24(b) of the Income Tax Act.

2. The deduction on interest component on home loan is available up to Rs.1.5 lakhs if the loan was taken on or after April 1, 1999 to buy or build a property. The purchase or construction should be completed within three years from the end of the financial year in which the loan was taken. In addition to it a certification from the lending banks is needed to certify that interest is payable against the loan advanced to buy or construct a house.

3. These deductions are only available if you continue to make payments. If a borrower fails to make EMI payments on time, he cannot claim tax benefits on the amount supposed to have been paid.

4. If a person buys a house and sells it within the same year or before three years, he is liable to pay short term capital gains tax. But,if the sale had taken place after three years, he is liable to pay long term capital gains tax. Long-term capital gains are exempt from tax if the profit amounts are invested in capital gains tax-saving bonds as detailed under Section 54.

5. Only a person who has taken a home loan can claim tax deductions. If there are co-borrowers of the home loan , the deduction they can claim is limited to the extent to the part of the loan they repay.

Have you applied for a Home Loan in India yet? Have you encountered any problems or has it been a breeze? Share your experiences with other NRIs through this blog. :)

For all you NRIs that are looking to buy a home or a flat in a fancy apartment complex or any other type of real estate in India, here are the documents that you would need.

Identity

You can establish your identity through copies of passports, birth/school leaving certificates, driver’s license or organizational identity/labor cards. You may have to provide a certificate of your educational qualifications too.

Proof of residence

Copies of a valid resident visa stamped on your passport, utility bills or insurance premium receipts can provide proof of residence. You will need your employer to certify your designation, length of employment, passport number and salary slip, along with a copy of your latest work permit. You will also need three years’ tax returns and copies of bank statements for the past four months.

Self employed

If self employed, you have to provide a brief introduction to your business or profession and copies of trade licenses/certificate of incorporation, copies of balance sheets, profit and loss statements for the past three years and details of current and savings accounts for the past six months.

Proposed buy

The details of your proposed buy are required. These are the builder’s allotment letter, cash receipts, construction plans, cost, approved drawing and agreement of sale/sale deed.

Have the deed inspected thoroughly to prevent fraud. Take out homeowner’s insurance in advance. In addition, a lender’s coverage insurance may be required. Get a completion certificate from the seller as it tells you that your home conforms to local laws.

Additionally, details of assets and liabilities are required from all applicants. Finally, you may need to show your PIO card, Power of Attorney to a local representative, guarantor forms along with net worth and Continuous Discharge certificate.

The paper is as important as the home itself! Don’t let this get you down; the thing to remember is that when the home is finally yours, it will have been worth the effort.

Finding the right home is exciting. Though the process of buying a home can cause heartache, it is most important that you get the paperwork right.

Real estate investing involves purchasing, owning, managing, and renting/sale of real estate for profit. Real estate is very cash flow dependent and capital intensive. Without proper knowledge of this, investment can become risky. Most investment failures happen because of the investor going into negative cash flow for a period of time that cannot be sustained.

Individual properties are unique to themselves and not directly interchangeable, which presents a challenge when trying to evaluate prices and find investment opportunities. Because of this, finding properties to invest in may involve a substantial amount of work and competition among individual investors. Real estate investors use a number of different appraisal techniques to determine the value of properties before purchase. Sources of investment property include: market listings, real estate agents, private sales, wholesale, and public auctions.

Real estate assets are typically very expensive in comparison to other investment instruments such as stocks or bonds. It is very uncommon for an investor to pay the entire amount of the purchase price in cash. Usually, a large portion of the purchase price will be financed using some kind of financial instrument, like a mortgage loan, using the property itself as collateral. The amount financed by the investor's own capital is called equity. Lenders usually have minimum equity requirements for investments they are financing, most often 20% of appraised value.

Equity build-up is the increase in the investor's equity ratio as the portion of debt service payments devoted to principal over time. Equity build-up counts as a positive cash flow from the asset where the debt service payment is made out of income from the property, rather than from independent income sources. Capital appreciation is the increase in market value of the asset over time, realized as a cash flow when the property is sold. Capital appreciation can be very unpredictable unless it is part of a development and improvement strategy. Purchase of a property for which the majority of the projected cash flows are expected from capital appreciation rather than other sources is considered speculation rather than investment.

Some individuals and companies are engaged in the business of purchasing properties at foreclosure sales, this is known as foreclosure investment. According to the legal foreclosure stages when the process is completed, the lender may sell the property and keep the proceeds to satisfy its mortgage and any legal costs. The foreclosing bank has the right to continue to honor the client's lease, but customary as a rule the bank wants the property vacant, in order to sell it more easily. Thus distressed assets are considered by some to be worthwhile investments because the bank or mortgage company is not motivated to sell the property for more than is pledged against it.