FAQ about Ooty Real Estate

Things you should know about buying property in Ooty, Nilgiri’s

1. Ooty is the capital of the hill district of Nilgiri’s. It was a quiet unspoilt town till the IT boom in Bangalore and later in other towns of South India happened.  Ooty is very close to Kerala, Bangalore and Chennai and is a favorite weekend and holiday destination for people in these cities. Most people who have been to Ooty want a piece of the paradise and that is how the Ooty real estate business kicked in.
2. Fact: Ooty or for that matter the rest of the Nilgiri’s is not a very habitable place. The local population mostly comprised of tea estate workers who lived in small shanties and farmers who live in small villages for the sake of protection from wild animals.
3. Visitors get enamored by the flowers and fruits they see at Ooty and many decide to buy land to do a bit of farming or to settle down after retirement.  The fact is the flowers you see are mostly bought from nurseries and require a lot of care and the fruits are farmed with great difficulty by small farmers.  Water and electricity is in short supply and farming and agriculture is viable only for small farmers.  City folks who buy land with the intention of farming will find the going difficult and a waste of time and effort. It is easier to buy the flowers and fruits from a  shop than to grow it, unless you are a sado-masochist.
4. Similarly with people building homes in Ooty.  What they don’t realize is that the resorts where they stayed have generator back-up and water tankers supplying water. Residents of Ooty are not that lucky and get water sometimes once a week or in three times a week after monsoons. Electricity can go of without warning and will be restored three or four days later. Remember, Ooty is a small town and it does not have the facilities of a city. When you have power and water problems in the city, what do you expect in a one horse town like Ooty?
5. Most home owners rarely use the house they built as Ooty can get boring after a couple of visits. That is when they join the long queue of people dumping the property in the market. Renting out the place is not viable as you need cleaning staff to maintain the premises.
6. Real estate in Ooty does not appreciate like it does in cities. A plot of land will not give you any return in terms of profit and most people undersell to get rid of the property. Most properties on sales are from city folks who are looking for bakra’s to buy off their property.
7. In summer, only the main Ooty town has supply of water while the rest depend on wells or rivulets.
8. If a property costs 10 lakhs, then brokers will advertise it for 40 lakhs. Avoid brokers like the plague unless you are trying to lighten your wallet.
9. Gated communities or plots in such communities are nothing but pipe dreams. Most plots lie unsold and many gated communities are like ghost towns.  Many such communities were destroyed in landslides.  After which the government has put restriction on construction.
10. You cannot build a house more than 3 cents as per building regulations. You cannot flout this rule no matter what.
11. Most properties up for sales are tea gardens converted to khata land as the tea farmers would like to sell their land and head to the cities for a better life. These land are sloping and will require double the construction cost due to the slope. Do not buy such land as they are useless and prone to be washed down during rains or landslides.
12. Since buyers are not united no one ever knows the situation in Ooty and we have new buyers entering the market every year, only to dump the property for sale next year till a new set of buyer enters the market.
13. The Geographical Society of India (GIS) is conducting a survey of landslide prone land in the Nilgiris and Himalaya’s. People living in such are will have to move. It is therefore better to buy land after the survey instead of losing it to government acquisition.

Last but not the least, an advice. When you are planning to visit Ooty, book a good resort and enjoy your stay without the hassle of looking after your property, or running after water or electricity. You will spend les money that way than buying  a house and maintaining it.