According to Greater Noida CEO and Chairman Rakesh Bahadur, Greater Noida Township could possibly be the first city in the country to win these awards, but it is definitely the first in UP.

He said one year of planning and hard work by Greater Noida officers and employees had gone into preparation for the organization, winning these prestigious international awards.

Internal system, management, customer relations and resolving problems according to the set norms are the criteria for  winning ISO 9001 award while unpolluted environment, modern technology and ground water reservoirs were the main yardsticks for the ISO 14001 award.

The awards are presented by NAQSAR, a Switzerland-based international organization, Mr Bahadur said.

The Greater Noida has computerized all its records while permanent records are kept safe and their accessibility is restricted. All public complaints are addressed in a timebound manner and the GNIDA has achieved 85% success rates in past six months in this regard.

The Chairman said Greater Noida was launching a huge housing project, KP-5 for middle and lower income groups.

Hundreds of single-storey houses with one or two rooms will be built on a 90 sq.mt area in a complex which will have a market, school, community centre, dispensary, a nursing home, swimming pool, a sports complex, etc.

The total area of the project will be 100 acres and it will be completed in three years.

A sports and recreation centre over 42 acres and at a cost of Rs 42 crore was also planned as part of this project with cricket ground, athletic tracks, swimming pool, basket ball, volley balls courts, football grounds, etc.

The situation becomes even worse if one is not planning to stay in that place i.e. rent it out to someone else. In this scenario, rent savings are not 100%. One still incurs costs like Building Maintenance and has additional ones like Brokerage fees. The chances of place being empty (say 1 month in a year or more) are also high and so are the chancs of higher wear and tear leading to higher spend on Maintenance (Painting, Repair etc.).

Based on this model and many more models, if one is looking at a personal stay of say X years, Buying makes sense. This Buy Vs Rent is always an interesting exercise.  

In general, Buying makes more sense if one is planning to stay in one place for more than 5 years. But this varies a lot too. In current market scenario, the X might be 8 or maybe even 10 years. If one has a plan to stay for 10 years and can stomach some major volatility along the way where prices could fall by say 10, 20, 30% or even more, he will come out a wnner in the end. The problem one can have heart attacks if the property prices fall by that much. This has happened in many markets both in India and abroad in last 15 years.

Also, I do not think anyone has a horizon of 10 years these days. The future is so uncertain that no one can plan for 10 years.

Overall, not a great situation to be in. So unless is forced to make a call now and has to absolutely do it, postpone the decision and wait and watch.

• Dont be short sighted when you do these calculations.
  
• Look at historical data for the NCR region
  

• Its always better to own that rent
  
• The house you live in is not an investment - Its where you live - The price of that house in immaterial.
  
• Lets say today you can afford a house in a decent area costing 20L  - In 5 yrs it might happen that you will have to go 10 km ahead to afford the same type of house.
  
• So again for the house you are going to live in, all your calculations are a moot point.

--demand is less in both residential and commercial / office sector as the prices of gurgaon has exceeded a lot and does not justify the infrastructure of the city...MNCs are opting for other cities like Greater Noida which have far better infrastructure and lesser price and more availability of land as its a new city, and residential demand is also shifting to other regions like indirapuram , greater noida and now even to sonipat , faridabad..

--now the most imp reason..every buyer has a capacity....most of the buyers are upper middle class MNC officers and most of them have taken a loan...now nor the loan rates are crashing and neither their salaries are increasing by 100%....nearly 80% of END USERS are in the range of 30-40 lakhs and they all want a 3 bedroom house for this price ...now gurgaon and noida have exceeded this...resulting in MORE INVESTORS AND LESS END USERS......and any market governed by investors and their speculation is very volatile.......

--with the coming up of new cities giving better connectivity , MNC , infratsructure and cheaper price..the buyers are opting for these areas more than ever....the reason why gurgaon and noida attracted so many MNC and residentail develeopment 7-8 years ago is because these cities had ample land for MNCs and the rates were cheaper than delhi...for residents..bigger houses at better rates...now exactly the same thing is happening to gurgaon and noida...with new cities with more land , better infrastructure and cheaper prices..they are commanding excellent growth.

--The prices WILL NOT FALL in gurgaon and noida as it will lead to panic....the prices will stabilise and builders in these areas will start giving more facilties like free car park , power back up etc etc..which will enable them to keep the per sq ft rate alive and yet give something to attract the buyer..

--If one has to purchase..go for newer areas...they have far better connectivity , facilities , infrastructure and better rates
in south new sectors in faridabad , manesar ,north side has sonipat/kundli but the most happening is the east side with indirapuram and greater noida....

You'll pay rent  for coming years and if you plan to buy property any time in future, you'll never get never get that at current price. Hence you'll pay extra money in 2 ways i.e. by paying rent and then by buying property at increased prices. Speculations that prices will drop is now a very distinctive dream and as soon as all the property will change hands, you'll get one more price surge in Gurgaon.

nearly 60% of the owners in gurgaon are investors who just want their property prices to go up....they are concerned with nothing else...you can identify them easily..as all they speak of is the "price increase"...you will never find them talking about "water , electricity and basic infrastructure of the place"....anyways....as nearly 60% of buyers are investors in gurgaon there has been an artificial price increase.

any house on resale will have an artificial increase but the price offered by a builder is realistic for the simple reason that a builder has to sell nearly 300-400 appts whereas in resale only 2-3 appts have to be sold by the dealer

paying 1 crore for an appt is NOT a problem....but one should get equally good facilities and infrastructure.most of these houses costing 1 crore , etc in DLF and MG road are the ones which have very BASIC facilities and standard quality.

If you have to spend 1 crore or more then go for a new project by a reputed builder , instead of getting standard quality and infrastructure you will get something which is good and latest.

Gurgaon is crumbling and has got saturated....MNCs are opting for other cities , big builders have started going to other cities ...and the infratstructure is getting from bad to worse...

its simply NOT worthed to spend 1 crore for an appt in a city like gurgaon...the prices will NOT increase further...infact the new projects have started giving a lot for the same price to attract buyers..like free car park , free power back up , club membership etc etc etc...

1. Did you do a whatif including even a modest 5% to 8% annual appreciation of the property? I am not suggesting the hypergrowth appreciation of 20% to 30% that has been traditional in India, although many would insist that the future appreciation will remain above 10% given the fundamentals that are boosting the Indian real estate market - rising wages, at least for skilled people, rapidly expanding mortgage pool, and most important of all, the increasing population of the metros. The last, by the way, is a global megatrend that the First World economies have already gone through and the Asian giants are just about to go through.
   
2. Regardless of what the numbers are, there is a BIG DIFFERENCE between a pot of money at the end of 20 to 40 years - which is the resale value of your property - as opposed to 5 lacs of savings per year. That 5 lacs per annum will not be there. It will get absorbed into your spending pattern. An analogy - you get a paycheck every month and you automatically have a certain percent deducted and saved in some account. At the end of 10 to 20 years you have a nest egg. On the other hand, you decided to take your entire paycheck home and then save as you wish. Would you really save all that much?