Appa proposed that we will find and shift into a new house by the end of the weekend and God did everything to dispose off my dad’s plan. After traveling on foot all around our locality for more than 4 hours each day, what did Appa get in return? A well worn out pair of chappals! Going around with Appa, I realized how difficult it is to find a suitable house, in good locality, in good neighborhood, within our budget and big enough for us.
Of course, we did find a lot of brokers who were willing to search for us if only we were ready to shell out half the rent to them. I somehow feel, it’s too much money to the broker and at this point of time, none of us in our family could afford it.
By the end of the weekend, we are were extremely disappointed and wondered why God was so partial to Appa.
Anyway, I am not writing this post to crib or complain about the failure of the house hunt. I wanted to list out some tips to find a house for TO-LET, without a broker.
- Look for the TO-LET board hung on the gate or the balcony (this point is too obvious)
- Go through classifieds in Deccan Chronicle (this point is also a very obvious one)
- Start early. That is when we get to meet the newspaper boys and milk delivery boys. They are the right ones to know which house is empty (nice idea na?!)
- Enquire the dhobi or the isthriwala or the radhdhiwala in that locality for details of available houses (most of them may have turned into rental brokers, beware!)
- If you are searching during twilight or dark, look for portions of the buildings/apartments that do not have any lights on. They are most likely to be available for rent. (This one really helps. We found close to 5 portions using this technique.)
- If all the windows of a building are shut or if the building is getting newly painted, we can stop there and enquire!
I learnt all this by observing the way Appa was progressing towards finding a home for us. In spite of all our efforts, we failed miserably. Better luck next time!
