Buying a house: How to bag a good property deal in 2013

The passing year witnessed insipid growth in the residential property market, with buyers turning cautious and hoping for a price correction and lower home loan interest rates. The developers managed to hold on to the ticket prices of their projects, but were forced to offer discounts to generate sales.

High inflation continued to play spoilsport as it prevented any substantial cut in home loan rates and left little investible surplus with buyers.

On the policy front, the RBI asked banks to exclude stamp duty, registration and other documentation charges from the total value of the home for calculating the eligible loan amount. It also restricted banks from lending more than 80% for houses worth over Rs 20 lakh. This means you will have to save more to buy your dream home.

The developers came up with new gimmicks to sell their projects. Instead of bringing down the price, they altered the meaning of affordability. If projects under Rs 30 lakh were touted as affordable two years ago, even the ones with a Rs 60 lakh tag were termed affordable in 2012. It's another matter that incomes did not keep pace to justify this 'affordability'.

The NRI buyers benefited during the year due to the depreciation of rupee against the dollar. "In places like Bangalore and Pune, the NRI investment helped the overall volumes," says Pankaj Kapoor, managing director of Mumbai-based Liases Foras.