The short answer
For most buyers the city is already decided by where the income and the family are. The real choice is the locality, and it comes down to a few things you can check: how long the daily commute actually takes, whether water reaches the taps without tankers, whether the street floods, how far the nearest hospital and the children's schools are, what the area costs to buy compared with what it costs to rent, and how easily a home there could be sold or let later.
Two habits make the decision far better. First, verify every piece of upcoming infrastructure on the website of the agency building it, not in a project brochure. Second, score every shortlisted locality on the same worksheet, with weights you set before you fall for any one home. The worksheet is at the end of this guide.
Commute: measure it, do not estimate it
Travel the route at the hour you will actually travel, on a working day, at least twice. A map's estimate at noon is not the commute at 9 am. If two people in the household work in different places, measure both routes and add them; the locality that suits one earner often punishes the other.
Separate transport that runs today from transport that is promised. A metro line or suburban rail station that is operational changes a commute now. A line that is sanctioned but not built may change it in some years, and a line that is only proposed may never be built on that alignment. The metro rail corporation or the state transport department publishes the status of its own lines; check the station location there, because the nearest station on a brochure map is sometimes the nearest proposed one.
Note the last stretch too: the walk or ride from the station to the gate, whether there is a footpath, and whether the road floods or jams at the turn-off. Many commutes are decided by the last kilometre.
Water supply, flood risk and drainage
Ask residents, not the seller, how many hours of municipal water the building receives, whether it depends on borewells, and how often it buys tankers in summer. The resident welfare association or the society secretary usually knows, and the monthly maintenance bill sometimes shows the tanker cost as a line item.
For flood risk, look at the ground. Is the building lower than the road? Are there signs of water marks on compound walls, or sandbags stored near entrances? Is the area near a lake bed, a river bank or a storm-water drain that has been built over? Ask shopkeepers who have been on the street for years whether it waterlogged in the last heavy monsoon. Where your municipal corporation or the state disaster management authority publishes flood-prone area maps, check the locality on them.
Drainage and sewerage matter for the same reason. A locality on septic tanks with a sewer line 'coming soon' carries both a cost and a smell risk until it arrives.
Schools, hospitals and daily needs
Find the nearest hospital with a round-the-clock emergency department and time the drive at night. For families with children, list the schools you would actually apply to and check their admission rules; some schools give weight to how close the family lives, so the locality can affect the application itself.
Daily needs are easy to underrate: a pharmacy, a vegetable market, a bank branch or ATM, a park. Walk the area on a weekend morning and a weekday evening to see what is open and how it feels.
Upcoming infrastructure: verify, do not trust the brochure
Brochures describe locations in minutes from things that do not yet exist. Treat every such claim as a question and answer it from the source.
Metro lines and stations: the metro rail corporation's own website and its published project reports. Highways and expressways: the National Highways Authority of India or the state road development corporation. Ring roads, zoning changes and new town centres: the development authority's master plan or development plan, and any notified modifications to it. Airports: the Airports Authority of India or the state agency running the project. Land acquisition for a road through or beside the property: the notifications in the state gazette.
Note the stage of each project in your own words: proposed, sanctioned, under construction or operational. Only the last two should influence a price you are willing to pay, and only operational infrastructure changes daily life now.
Remember that infrastructure can cut both ways. An elevated road or a metro viaduct outside the window improves the locality's connectivity and worsens that particular flat's noise and light.
Price compared with rent
Our rates pages show the asking price per square foot and the typical asking rent for each city and locality, worked out from the live listings on the site. They are asking prices, not registered sale prices, but they let you compare like with like across localities.
Dividing a year's rent by the price gives the gross rental yield, a quick sanity check on whether a locality's prices are driven by what people pay to live there or by expectations. A locality where buying costs many more years of rent than its neighbours deserves a closer look at why.
Worked example (illustrative figures only, not market data): a flat priced at ₹80,00,000 that would rent for ₹25,000 a month earns ₹3,00,000 a year in rent before costs. ₹3,00,000 ÷ ₹80,00,000 = 3.75% gross yield. A similar flat elsewhere at ₹60,00,000 renting for ₹22,000 a month gives ₹2,64,000 ÷ ₹60,00,000 = 4.4%. The yield says nothing about future prices; it only tells you what the rent pays for today. The rent versus buy calculator runs the fuller comparison with your own figures.
New supply and resale liquidity
The state RERA register lists every registered project in a locality with its promoter, its size and its committed completion date. A long list of projects due in the same few years means plenty of choice for buyers now, and plenty of competition when you later try to sell or let a similar flat.
Liquidity is how easily a home can be sold or let at a fair price. It is helped by a standard configuration, a well-known building, clean papers and a locality where many people want to live for reasons that are not about to change. It is hurt by unusual layouts, unresolved approvals, and dependence on a single employer or a single piece of promised infrastructure. Look at how many similar homes are listed in the locality and how long some have been listed; both are visible on the listing pages.
Safety and the feel at different hours
Visit after dark. Check street lighting, whether the walk from the bus stop or station feels comfortable, and who is around. Ask residents, especially women who commute late, how they feel about it.
Look for the basics of a functioning neighbourhood: a resident welfare association that meets, security at building gates, a police station or beat post within reach. None of this appears in a brochure, and all of it shows on a single evening walk.
A scoring worksheet you can use
List your shortlisted localities across the top of a sheet and these rows down the side: commute (each earner), water, flood and drainage, schools, hospital, daily needs, infrastructure that is operational or under construction, price against rent, resale and letting liquidity, safety, and the home itself.
Give each row a weight from 1 to 5 before you score anything, based on what matters to your household. Then score each locality from 1 (poor) to 5 (good) on each row, using what you measured and checked rather than what you were told. Multiply each score by its weight and add the column.
Worked example (illustrative scores only): weights of commute 5, water 4, flood 4, schools 3, price against rent 2. Locality A scores 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, which gives 20 + 12 + 16 + 12 + 6 = 66. Locality B scores 2, 5, 5, 3, 4, which gives 10 + 20 + 20 + 9 + 8 = 67. The totals are close, which is itself useful: it tells you the decision turns on the commute, and that a second timed trip to B is worth more than another visit to a sample flat.
Keep the sheet. When a broker tells you a locality is about to change, you will know which row the claim belongs in and whether you have checked it.
Common mistakes and questions to ask
Common mistakes: choosing on a single weekend visit; trusting a 'minutes from' claim without timing it; paying for infrastructure that is only proposed; ignoring the second earner's commute; skipping the monsoon question; and comparing headline prices instead of the rate per square foot on the same area basis.
Questions to ask residents: How many hours of water do you get? Did the street flood last monsoon? How long does the morning commute take? What does the society spend on tankers and backup? Would you buy here again?
Questions to ask the seller or developer: Which infrastructure on your brochure is under construction today, and where is that shown officially? What is the RERA registration number and the committed completion date? What do the maintenance bills show for water?
Documents and sources to keep: the timed commute notes, screenshots of the official status of any infrastructure project, the RERA project page, the locality's page on our rates section, and your filled-in worksheet.
Common questions
Should I buy in a locality because a metro line is coming?
Only if the line is under construction or operating, and you have checked the station's location on the metro corporation's own website. A proposed line may change alignment or timing, and a price that already assumes it leaves you paying for something that does not exist yet.
How do I check if an area floods?
Look for water marks and raised entrances, ask long-standing shopkeepers and residents about the last heavy monsoon, and check the flood-prone area maps your municipal corporation or state disaster management authority publishes, where available. Visiting after a heavy rain is the best test.
Are the rates on this site what homes actually sell for?
No. They are asking prices and rents worked out from the live listings on the site, which is useful for comparing localities on the same basis. Registered sale prices and the government's guidance values are different figures.
What is a good rental yield?
There is no single right number, and we do not suggest one. Use yield to compare localities against each other with the same method; a locality far out of line with its neighbours deserves a closer look at why.
Is a locality with lots of new projects a good sign?
It shows developers expect demand, and it gives you choice as a buyer. It also means more similar flats competing with yours when you sell or let. Look at the committed completion dates on the RERA register to see when that supply arrives.
How many localities should I shortlist?
Enough to compare, few enough to visit properly: three or four is manageable. Score them all on the same worksheet before you visit individual homes.
Sources
- Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 — state RERA project registers (promoter, project size, committed completion date)
- Your city's development authority master plan or development plan, and notified modifications
- Metro rail corporations, the National Highways Authority of India and state road agencies for the status of transport projects
- Municipal corporation or state disaster management authority flood-prone area maps, where published
- BuySellProperty rates pages: asking prices and rents from live listings (see the methodology page)
Last checked 2026-10-02.