When Kings want to buy a place in Bangalore- Windmills of your Mind

I would like to start this blog post by saying that I have tried my level best to get in touch with Alex Kurian the Assistant VP of Marketing at Total Environment but failed miserably.  A barrage of emails and phone calls later I have decided to just go ahead and write what I had in my mind.

I visited the Windmills of your Mind model flat a couple of months back and have been wanting to review the property for quite sometime but it has been impossible to track down anyone in the company. Moving on to the review, let me start with the price which can be anything above a whopping 4 crores. This means that it is made for the elite and  super rich. I am sure you are asking the question but is it worth 4 crores?  Well lets find out.

Located in the Whitefields area, Windmills of Your Mind has 73 duplex homes, five 19-storeyed blocks with 180 duplex units in all and two more blocks of 144 single storeyed apartments. Like other premium segment properties, it has the usual specifications: central AC, imported marble/granite/laminated wood finish, Bissazza glass-mosaic tiles in the master bathroom, chimney-dishwasher-hob in kitchen and so on. There are also some not so common, especially the home-automation system — magnetic sensors on windows, door cameras,  bio-metric door locks and a central vacuum system ( which is pretty cool !). Each apartment going right up to the 19th floor, opens out into a garden and a waterbody. There’s even a tub in a private bathroom garden.

What REKhoj thinks

The model flat I saw was the duplex which was a  real treat to the eye and senses. Very rarely do you see so much open space inside an apartment, there is lush greenery right outside your balcony and this extends not only to the “ground floor” but also till the 19 floors.  There are three types of living spaces – the villas, the round apartments and the duplex units which makes for a good combination. For someone who can afford that kind of price range is looking for luxury over anything and that means that most of the criterion that we use to gauge apartments really falls flat.

One small issue I have with this property is the really bad location. The roads that lead to the place experience really bad traffic during peak hours and not so good in the off-peak hours. It is not out of the Bangalore area bounds but just unreachable between 4-8pm. If someone is really looking for a peaceful and quite place far away from all the commotion then maybe this is not a great option.

Even if you are not planning to buy an apartment with them make sure you atleast go visit the sample flat, maybe it may inspire you to start working harder and making more dough . There are very few projects in Bangalore that come close to matching them in quality, though the big guns like Prestige ( White Meadows ), Mantri etc have taken cue and are coming up with some luxury apartments in that price range and quality.

Shriram Sahana – A musical note on Luxury

Shriram Sahana apartments at Yelahanka is one of the premier luxury apartments by Shriram Properties, it was a bit difficult to track down the right person to talk about this property but our persistence got us there. We reviewed this apartment because of interest from 5 potential clients and we must say we got some good insights to share.

The apartment complex consists of two types of apartments, 2BHK + study and 3BHK flats, built over an area of 7acres it has a total of 7blocks and 364 apartments. They have amenities like a club house, swimming pool etc . Each floor had 4 apts with none of them facing each other. They have about 0.5acres alloted to children playing area. The apartments are scheduled to complete its first phase by April 2011 and will be ready to occupy by Sept 2011. You can have a look at the floor plans here . They have a model flat but no photos or videos to show for.  They also claim to get 30-40% of their bookings from previous customers itself .

What REKhoj thinks?

Shriram Sahana is a trademark Shriram properties building, a lot of apartments and a community feel. This is located near Yelahanka which is touted as the next Indiranagar, it has a good reach of amenities like hospitals, schools and Metro station (proposed). There is also BMS engineering college close by which is a plus if your child is going to engineering soon. There is an SEZ (special economic zone) proposed there,which seems to be a huge bonus if things work out.  Given all these factors this property looks like a good place from an investment perspective. I am not too happy about the apartment because there doesnt seem to be too much of free space within the apartment as I am someone who likes some open spaces in the apartment. The 3BHK has large bedrooms and balconies . Also given the projects coming up in the same area and the increasing prices of real estate as the market is picking up it may be a good idea to explore Sahana as an option if you are looking for something in the Yelahanka region.

From an amenities perspective they are giving the standard offering that most luxury apartments.  Their prices are competitive and looking at the prices of the Shobha, Prestige and NCC urban projects the prices seem pretty good as this launch.

We had some questions from prospective clients which are below with the answers:

1) Information about rainwater harvesting system in the apartment complex?

They have plans of installing a rainwater system but haven’t decided which one it would be. The other sources of water are Kaveri and Bore well.

2) Quality of construction (there are many instances of ppl complaining about the quality of shriram esp bathrooms). ?

They clearly denied any such issues from previous customers and assured that they have a very prompt customer care department. With 14 projects already done its seems to be a good case of returning customers. I also spoke to some previous customers in Shriram Samruddhi and they are vocal about their satisfaction with their apartments . Having said that its upto the customer to do their proper research before they make the decision.

3) What is the carpet area % ?

They claim to have it btw 75-80% , I would be careful with that statistics because the person I spoke to was not sure what the % was and just gave the range.

To end this review, Shriram Sahana looks like a great investment right now because of the costs at the initial stages,  if you want to wait for some more time  before taking a decision there are many more projects that are coming up in that area.

Important links :

www.shriprop.com

Arya Hamsa – Luxury in a Budget

Arya Lotus Virtual tour

“Luxury in a Budget” – this is how Mr CK Ramnarian director of Arya Developers, who is  spearheading the -Arya Hamsa apartments had to say about his next 157 flat strong project. The property is located in JP nagar 8^th Phase, off Bannerghatta road, consisting of 1BHK (734 sqft) , 2BHK (1098-1256 sqft), 3BHK(1456 sqft) and 4BHK (still in planning process )  flats.

Arya Hamsa promises a living space with a lot of light and ventilation, something I can personally vouch for having seen their previous properties in Arya Lotus (you can see a virtual tour at this link (http://www.bits360.com/v2/#/378/). They claim to have designed the apartments in accordance with Vaastu and promise a lot of privacy. The property also includes a full-fledged Clubhouse and swimming pools which are not small buckets of water that most builders promise.  For people who like a lot of greenery they have promised that there would be around 1 acre of greenery around the property.

What REKhoj thinks?

From the outside Arya Hamsa looks like a run of the mill apartment complex but on further investigation we found a lot of positives for a customer who is looking to buy an apartment in the 20-30 lakh range. Though slightly smaller in terms of overall sq ft of the apartments, Arya Hamsa provides large bedrooms and open space. They have removed the typical two balconies in a 3BHK to one balcony and added the space to accommodate larger spaced bedrooms which I think is a brilliant move. They have a carpeted area/superbuiltup of 75% and builtup/superbuiltup of 84% which are pretty good numbers for any apartment complex.

They are located in a somewhat crowded location with a number of properties coming up in that region, this may be a plus as this means JP nagar 8^th phase is no more “outskirts” and can be a negative also for people who were looking for something outside the traffic stricken Bangalore city are now in the middle of it.

Builder’s reputation can play a large role while selecting your dream house because there are a lot of builders out there who you would rather not buy a house from at half the price. With Arya it’s the complete opposite; they are trustworthy and have a good name amongst the builder’s community. Mr Ramnarian claims that this property which is a steal for anyone looking for a budget apartment with all the luxuries would be ready to occupy by April 2012 and I am sure it will be.

Special News: Arya Hamsa offers ground floor apartments with their own gardens. To know more send an email to realestatekhoj@bits360.com.

Important links:

Arya Developers Website - http://aryarealtors.in/index.html

Arya Lotus Virtual tour  – http://www.bits360.com/v2/#/378/

One of the best Gated Communities in Bangalore

Doing my round to meet some of the builders in the Bangalore region , I came across Diamond district which at first didnt seem to impressive on paper.  I was going to Diamond district to meet someone from marketing of Indian Builders corp (http://ibc.co.in/ ) to discuss their new projects and how we could work with them. I must say, I have passed the same place around 3 times everyday for the past 3 months but could never had imagined that there was such a beautiful and breathtaking building complex behind the IBC business center on Old Madras road.

This place really blew my mind because of the way it was made right in the middle of the city yet was completely secluded from the noise and traffic . There was always a nice cool breeze blowing, they had a massive pool/lake in the middle , had a nice little basketball court and tennis court.

I am big fan of Gated communities, because it has this colony kind of atmosphere which is very important for kids to make friends etc. I didn’t have the time to have a look at the rooms as I was unable to meet the marketing person but when I do I shall write more about it. For now IBC’s Diamond district is a hit in my directory, unfortunately its an old property and I am sure completely sold out. I shall let you guys know if there are any places available.

credit: Rajeev Singh via Panaramio

On further Google searching I found a video by helenborland (?) on Youtube which shows how the rooms look like.

PS: the relevant part is from 50 sec to 2:15 min.

What is Real estate Khoj ?

Buying an apartment, villa or real estate property is one of the biggest expenses in ones life. Thankfully there are a millions of options to chose from but unfortunately there is no place where you can get the right kind of information about these properties.

We at realestatekhoj want to help you take this decision by providing  neutral and unbaised comments from our inhouse experts on selected real estate properties.

If you are seriously looking at any apartment complex and want us to review it for you drop us an email at realestatekhoj@bits360.com  or leave a comment at our blog.