Rs 5 - 6 Cr

Rs 5 crore is where Gurugram stops selling square feet and starts selling density. Twenty-four priced listings on this site sit between Rs 5 and 6 crore, and what separates them from the band below is not finish - it is how many families share a floor, a lift and a driveway. This page explains the one ratio that settles most comparisons at this price, names what is currently listed in the band, and sets out what the money buys in each of the three corridors that carry it.

The ratio that decides it: flats per acre

Every project above Rs 5 crore describes itself as low density. The number behind the word is computable, and both of its inputs are on the registration: the total number of apartments, and the licensed area of the scheme. Divide one by the other.

This single figure explains most of the difference between two flats quoted at Rs 5.5 crore in adjacent sectors, and it can be checked before a foundation is poured.

Listed between Rs 5 and 6 crore

• Shapoorji Joyville Dualis, Sector 46 - about Rs 5.84 crore
• Sobha Crescent, Sector 63A - about Rs 5.50 crore
• Trevoc Royal Residences, Sector 56 - about Rs 5.25 crore

Others in the band, each with its own page: Smart World's Sector 66 and Sector 69 releases, 4S Aurrum in Sector 59, Anhad Sky Palazzo in Sector 88B, BPTP Downtown 66, M3M Golf Estate resale in Sector 65 and the Tonino Lamborghini Residences. The band is narrow, and a buyer can see all of it in a fortnight.

What Rs 5-6 crore buys, corridor by corridor

What changes against the band below

Between Rs 4-5 crore and Rs 5-6 crore the gains are structural rather than cosmetic: two to four flats a floor instead of four to six, frequently a private or semi-private lift lobby, a deeper balcony, a service entry that is not the front door, and tower spacing wide enough that a mid-floor flat looks at sky rather than at the neighbouring kitchen. Specification improves too, but specification can be bought later with a fit-out budget; the floor plate cannot.

What does not change is the city around the building. A Rs 5.5 crore flat in a sector whose road is half-built has the same commute as a Rs 3.5 crore one in the same sector. Buyers at this price sometimes assume the premium carries infrastructure with it. It does not.

The checks worth making at this price

1. Flats per acre, computed from the registration rather than read from the brochure.
2. Lifts per flat on your floor, and whether the service lift is separate. At this price a shared service and passenger lift is a real defect.
3. Tower spacing measured on the site plan, particularly for a mid-floor unit.
4. Maintenance rate and corpus, taken from the developer's completed buildings. On 2,800 sq ft this is a significant monthly figure and it does not fall.
5. How many identical units are unsold in the project, which is your resale competition for the next three years.
6. Whether the flat is handed over semi-finished, and what a full fit-out will cost - commonly 8-12 per cent of the price at this standard.

Who buys well here

This band suits the household that has decided to stay: the floor plate, the lobby and the spacing are consumed every day, and the weaker rental yield - about 2 to 2.5 per cent gross - never comes into play. It also suits a buyer moving from a 2,000 sq ft flat who wants space without taking on the maintenance and fit-out obligations of a Rs 8-10 crore apartment.

It suits an investor least. Entry costs are high, the buyer pool at resale is a fraction of the pool at Rs 3 crore, and yields fall as prices rise in this city. If the flat may be sold within five years, the address matters more than the specification, which argues for Sectors 53-56 over the expressway even at 400 fewer square feet.

For the corridor detail, the Golf Course Extension Road and Dwarka Expressway pages carry what else is selling along each; the luxury apartments listing covers everything above this band.

Ready, or two years out

Roughly half the stock in this band is under construction and half is complete or nearly so, which makes the comparison unusually clean. A finished flat lets you inspect the thing you are buying: the lobby as built rather than rendered, the lift brand, the actual gap between towers, the state of the basement after a monsoon, and a residents' association you can ask about maintenance. None of that is available on a launch, and at this price the difference between the brochure and the building is measured in tens of lakhs.

Against that, a launch in a corridor that is still repricing can be the better financial outcome, and construction-linked payments make the entry easier. The way to decide is to price the carry honestly: two years of interest on the drawn portion of a Rs 4 crore loan, plus rent if you are renting, against the premium the ready flat asks. If the premium is under about 10 per cent, the ready flat usually wins on total cost as well as on risk.

Interiors, which are not optional at this level

Almost every flat in this band is handed over semi-finished: basic flooring, no wardrobes, a kitchen counter without appliances, no lighting scheme. Bringing a 2,800 sq ft flat to the standard the sample apartment implies costs somewhere between Rs 45 lakh and Rs 90 lakh depending on how much joinery is involved, and it takes three to five months during which the flat cannot be occupied or let.

Two practical consequences. First, budget it at the time of purchase rather than after, because it is not funded by the home loan. Second, if the flat is being bought to let, an unfurnished unit at this rent sits empty: corporate tenants at Rs 1.3-1.6 lakh a month expect a finished home, and the fit-out is what converts the asset from a liability into an income.

One last note on timing. Projects in this band tend to release their best-positioned units - corner flats, higher floors, the ones looking at the green rather than at the next tower - early in the launch, and hold price on them later. If a particular unit matters more than a particular date, the inventory sheet is the document to ask for, not the price list. It shows what is left, and it is the reason two buyers in the same project can pay the same rate for very different flats.