Don't let your house set a money trap for you

Amit Agarwal, 37, a professor at a college in Gurgaon, Haryana, bought a house about six years ago in Indirapuram, Ghaziabad. At that time, he was working at another college in Greater Noida, not far from where he bought his house. “I was about to get married and my family was putting pressure on me to buy a house,” said Agarwal. Soon after, he got married, but his wife, Meenakshi Aggarwal, taught at a school in Dwarka, West Delhi, and her workplace was too far from their house. “It used to take her more than an hour to reach the school and it was very hectic for her,” said Agarwal. A couple of years later they had a child and they decided to move to a rental house near Deepsikha’s school, so that she could spend more time with her child and continue to work. “We had no option, so we moved to Dwarka. Later on, I got a job in Gurgaon,” said Agarwal. The family thought it was time to sell the house, but the market price was lower than what it cost them. “I bought the house for Rs42 lakh and spent an additional Rs4 lakh on stamp duty, registration fee, brokerage and other expenses, but the current offers are only around Rs45 lakh,” said Agarwal. Agarwal’s family is not the only one that finds itself trapped. The false belief that real estate prices will

This article was originally published on November 08, 2018.