Building your dream home

While building an independent house can be a very exciting and satisfying experience,you should keep important points in mind:

Gather information: This is the most important step. The home owner should do maximum research on the subject. The cost of building a house varies widely depending on locality,raw materials,structure,and design of the house. You should also track prices of raw materials,labours,and design artefacts.

Finding the fair rate: Find out the fair price for building a house. This can be in Rs per square feet. For example,in an area like Hyderabad,construction may cost anywhere between Rs 500 to Rs 1,500 per square feet. Know the right cost for your type of house. Remember if you overpay Rs 200 per square feet,you are spending Rs 6 lakh more for building a house of 3,000 square feet.

Selecting the contractor: Selecting a good contractor is the most important task in the whole project. A contractor is like a project manager. Take quotations from various contractors and compare the overall service. Price is just a part of the complete end-to-end services provided by the contractor. You should look at the past records of the contractor,some structures built by him or her,quality of materials supplied,and references. If the contractor is building a structure currently,visit the site and take a look. You may get a fair idea about the quality of work,materials management,and resources utilisation just by looking around the site and observing the labourers working on the site.

Be involved: For you it is the house you are planning to reside in for a lifetime,for the builder it is just another project. So take care to be involved and ensure that the size and structure of the foundation is right,all the structural components are designed properly etc. otherwise it is impossible to change them when that particular stage of construction is complete.

Track the expenses: This is extremely important. Remember that building a house involves a huge amount of money. Even a difference of 10-20 per cent is going to weigh heavily on your pocket. Ask questions on the amount of cement,steel,timelines,and resources required for completing the work.

Timeliness: The cost of delays in construction is very high. Delays cost you in two ways. It delays possession and hence rental expenses continue. Two,delays always require some work to be redone before it starts again. In this situation,it is also important to understand the

seasonal factor that impacts the availability of labour. Typically,during the festive season,most labourers head back home. They invariably take long leave.This hampers your progress. Hence you should factor this while planning for constructing your home.

The author is CEO,Bankbazaar.com