finding and moving to a new home for cheap in Bangalore

On the 29th of September, I relocated to a new house. I wanted to relocate as cheaply as possible and I think I was sucessful in doing that. Here are some tips that you might find be useful.

Finding a home

The conventional way to do this is to use a real estate agent (or as we commonly call him "property dealer", "PD", broker) to find a suitable home. The downside to this is that you have to pay the agent one month of rent as commission. I was under the impression that in Bangalore this was the only way to find a home.

However, there is another way that I used this time. I went walking in the locality that I wanted to live in and wherever I saw an apartment block, I asked the security guards of that apartment if there were any flats available for rent. Frankly, I was a bit worried that the guards might treat me as a nut-case, or that I might have trouble communicating with them (since I don't know Kannada). However, even though I got a lot of "No apartments available for rent here" or "the rent here is HIGH_SUM_OF_MONEY", I got to see quite a few good apartments that were within my budget.

I finally found a good apartment using the above method.

Moving to the new home

Again, the conventional method to do this is to hire a Movers and packers and pay them a hefty sum to do the work. I called up quite a few movers and packers and even though they were asking for a big amount (Rupees 3500 to Rupees 5000), I had almost finalized on one of them.

However, one of my colleagues suggested that I can do the whole thing myself. In Bangalore (and Delhi), there are lots of Tempo stands (usually located near major bus stops). These people provide you with the vehicle to move your stuff as well as the laborers to load and unload your household items. However, these people do not do the packing part. I went out and after a bit of roaming around, I was able to locate a fellow who was willing to do the move for Rupees 2000.

The next part was doing the packing. This part actually seems more daunting than it really is. The trick is to get four essential components, viz: lots of big cartons (in Bangalore, this can easily be procured from your local kabaddiwala), at least 2 rolls of big, brown cello-tape (it is used for sealing the cartons), fast paced music that you can listen to while packing and finally a partner who can make sure you are not slacking off. Thats it.

A few tips from my experience

• pack all you small and expensive stuff in one bag and keep it with yourself when the laborers come in.
• pack your expensive and big stuff (like your desktop, microwave, television) and put some mark on those boxes. This will help in making sure the laborers are moving the big, expensive stuff carefully.
• Supervise the loading and unloading of the stuff yourself.

Hope you find these tips useful!