Are freebies offered by builders for real?

Real estate developers have been trying to woo prospective home buyers with various kinds of offers of discounts and freebies. But are these offers for real or are these just gimmicks to attract the prospective buyers? Let’s find out. 

If the builder tells you that you do not have to pay any amount towards registration fee and stamp duty, it only means that the builder would be paying the same on your behalf. But you can be sure that the builder will recover the registration and stamp duty amount from you by including them in the cost of the property. So, you basically end up paying stamp duty and registration charges in the form of the cost of the property itself.

Your builder might tell you that you will not have to pay any EMI on your home loan till the completion of the project, so you might think that you will save on interest cost till you get possession of your property.  This is yet another case of marketing gimmick. In this case, the builder may pay the EMI on your behalf to the lender bank, but he may have an enhanced property rate for providing the no-EMI facility till possession. Hence, if a home buyer opts for the EMI facility, the builder may sell the property at an enhanced rate. So, if the rate is Rs 5,500 per sq ft for a non-EMI deal, for the EMI deal, it could be Rs 5,800 per sq ft! Therefore, the so-called no-EMI benefit could be just illusory.

Lastly, if your builder is offering freebies such as car, fridge, air-conditioner, gold coins, club house membership or a free overseas trip, you can assume that the real estate prices have fallen, but your builder is offering you freebies to maintain the prices at higher levels. So, instead of reducing the price of the property as per the market rate, the builder is offering you freebies to sell the property at the higher price.