How buying a flat is different from buying a home?

Many have been a victim of this indecisive state of mind where sometimes buying a flat seems like a better prospect than buying a home and at other times the vice versa seems like a better proposition. Although both are significant real estate investments and would appreciate with time, there is a whole lot of difference in buying a flat and a home. This article will show you how.

You have at your disposal a significant amount of financial capital which you want to invest in real estate, or, you might be moving out of your current home and looking to buy a new place. Among the first questions that will trouble your mind will be, buy a home or a flat?

To answer the same, first we should know the similarities between the two. Both are long term real estate investments, require significant financial capital and are subjected to the economic volatility. Other than these, there is rarely anything similar between the two. It might be agreed upon that both serve the same end purpose and hence it hardly matters what you end up buying. However, this assumption is in stark contrast with the reality.

Difference between home and flat

To understand the difference between a flat or apartment, one must consider the advantages and disadvantages one offers over the other.

Security: A flat, often a part of a gated community offers far more secure living conditions than an independent house can offer. You wouldn’t spend hours worrying about the safety of your family the times you are away on an office trip. With elaborate security arrangements like entry gates manned by security guards 24 by 7 and surveillance camera recording every activity inside the residential complex, your family also feels more safe then it would in an independent house and that too at no extra cost. Ensuring the same level of security in a home will require you arrange for a security guard at a monthly wage and installing electronic safety equipment from your own pocket.

Freedom: While you are the owner of your apartment, the buyer’s agreement seldom allows for any kind of further construction or modification to the existing structure. Thus you have to live with what you got, however uncomfortable it gets in the future (just in case you have a family expansion). The only alternative in such a case is buying a bigger apartment. There are other lifestyle restrictions as well. An independent house doesn’t poses similar boundaries. You want to expand it vertically or horizontally, develop a garden of your own, build a swimming pool inside the house complex, or organize a party, you can do it all as long as the state’s law allows for it.

Price: Since an independent house not only offers you a structure to live in, but also includes the land on which the structure stands as a part of the package, naturally you will have to pay an amount far greater than what you would have paid for an apartment.

Privacy: An independent home offers far more privacy than a flat. You can reinforce privacy by constructing a boundary around your home or by altering the structure of the home so that it does not leaks any sound or visual to outsiders. In case of an apartment, the most you can do is curtain your windows and bolt your doors, which are not very effective measures in most cases.

RoI: The same logic that is behind the augmented pricing of an independent house is also behind it offering a greater return on Investment, in case you have plans for selling it in the future. While favorable real estate market conditions will ensure that your apartment also sells for a greater amount than for what you got it, the RoI will be smaller in magnitude than a home.

Saurabh Tyagi is an expert author with an expertise and knowledge in real estate domain. He has written scholarly articles on topics such as selling or buying 3 bhk residential flats in Ghaziabad and other cities.