The exercise of buying a home starts by questioning yourself about your needs ? needs regarding amount of space required, the amenities you need, the environment in which you would like to live, whether you want a new house or an old house and the amount of compromise you are prepared to make on any of these points in preference to the cost. So put away your dreams and put down on paper your basic needs.

Living space
How many bedrooms and bathrooms to you need? What size kitchen, reception room, and hall do you need? You need a storage room ? what size? Do you need a garage or a parking space? You will require heating, water supply. You would like to have a small garden or a lawn if possible. But put this down not as a need but as a desire.

Location
Do you want to live in urban, suburban or rural area? The factors to consider will be your requirements of commuting, your preference for developed neighborhoods, your desire for privacy and cost. Urban areas are costlier, more noisy, will generally have higher crime rate and greater pollution; but in urban areas you will have the advantage of established neighborhood and civic amenities such as schools, banks, marketplaces, public transport, etc. Commuting will not be a problem.

As you move away from the urban areas and move towards rural - through suburban - areas the picture changes. Property cost starts going down, environment becomes cleaner and less noisy; on the downside, established neighborhood starts vanishing, civic amenities become thinner. In any case, you will find more new houses in suburban and rural areas.

Type of accommodation
You have many alternatives to choose from. Single family home or an apartment? Single family home will give you much greater amount of privacy, will have larger living space as well as space outside. But single family homes are much more expensive. If you prefer a single family home, you may be restricted to looking for old houses Apartments are designed for efficient space utilization. They generally provide less space but by efficient space utilization provide all modern amenities in a home. They are more suited to modern life style. Apartments cost less, their maintenance and repair costs are low (since the common areas are maintained by the association or society). Your privacy, however, will be curtailed. You can opt for a new apartment or an old one. In case of old apartment, apart from the lower cost you may have the advantage of getting into a neighborhood that is already in place and the infrastructure in the locality already established.

New or old?
New homes are, well, NEW! They are new in construction and have all new fittings and fixtures. By design and construction new homes are about four times more energy efficient as compared to old houses. Since everything is new and generally covered by a builder?s warranty, your repair and maintenance costs are virtually zero at least for a few years. If you buy a new home, you can move in almost immediately.

Old houses are cheaper. They have a character. With an old home, you may have to undertake a certain amount of repair and renovation work. They are costlier on maintenance. What next? Your mind is now clear as to what you want in a home and the points on which compromises may be required and to what extent. Now it is time for you to look at your finances so that you could start fitting your needs and desires in a house within a budget.

S. Phadke is a retired electrical/control engineer, with over 45 years experience in senior positions in India & abroad. He has wide ranging nterests. He enjoys writing and has been writing articles on Real Estate, Conveyancing, Retirement, Energy Conservation, Home Based Industries, Online Data Storage, Networking, etc. He can be contacted at snphadke@gmail.com His blog URL is snphadke-energyreview

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