Finance
Compare two quotes on one area basis
Two quotes for two apartments are not comparable until they are measured the same way, and they usually are not: carpet area, built-up area and super built-up area are three different quantities for the same home, and only the first has a statutory definition. This page restates both quotes on carpet area using each seller's own stated loading, and reports the second as an index against the first. You supply both sets of numbers. We publish no figure per square foot, for our projects or for anybody's.
Start with the first quote
The price of the apartment itself, before charges listed separately.
What that area measures — carpet, built-up or super built-up — and the second quote are set in the full panel below. Nothing you type leaves the browser.
The method
Why two quotes are usually not comparable
One statutory definition, two commercial ones, and an unregulated factor in between.
Two quotes cannot be compared until they are measured the same way. Carpet area, built-up area and super built-up area are three different quantities for the same apartment, and only the first of them has a statutory definition — section 2(k) of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016.
The conversion between them is the loading factor, and nothing regulates it. It is stated by the seller, it differs between projects, and the same pair of areas is even converted into a percentage two different ways in ordinary use. So the loading is an input here: it comes from the seller's own statement, in writing, or the comparison cannot be made.
Restate both quotes on carpet area and the comparison becomes arithmetic: the total price divided by the carpet area it actually buys. The tool shows the second quote as an index against the first, which is the number that answers the question — is this one dearer, and by how much.
The index is deliberately what the page leads with. A per-square-foot figure computed from your own two numbers is yours, and it appears on your screen; it is not a rate this site publishes, stores or offers as a benchmark, because we have no basis on which to tell you what a square foot in a place should cost.
The three quantities
Carpet, built-up, super built-up
Same apartment. Three different numbers, and only one of them defined by statute.
Carpet area
Defined in section 2(k) of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 — the net usable floor area within the walls of the apartment, excluding the external walls, the shaft, the balcony and the open terrace, and including the internal partition walls.
Built-up area
In ordinary use, carpet area plus the walls and usually the balcony. No statute defines it, and two sellers can measure it differently.
Super built-up area
In ordinary use, built-up area plus a share of the common areas. No statute defines it, nothing fixes the share, and it is the basis a brochure customarily quotes on.
Worked, without money
What a stated loading does to a comparison
A quote on a carpet basis is set at 100. Every row is the same apartment quoted on a loaded basis instead.
| Loading stated by the seller | Quoted area, indexed | What the same total price buys, per unit of carpet |
|---|---|---|
| 0% | 100 | 100 on a carpet basis of 100 |
| 15% | 115 | 115 on a carpet basis of 100 |
| 25% | 125 | 125 on a carpet basis of 100 |
| 30% | 130 | 130 on a carpet basis of 100 |
| 40% | 140 | 140 on a carpet basis of 100 |
Read the last column as the argument. Two sellers quoting an identical figure per square foot, one at no loading and one at forty per cent, are forty per cent apart on the only quantity the Act defines. Nothing dishonest has happened in either quote — but a buyer comparing the two headline numbers has compared nothing at all.
Your figures
Normalise two quotes
Both quotes are yours. Nothing here is pre-filled, and nothing is sent anywhere.
Two quotes, restated on carpet area
Enter each quote as it was given to you, together with the basis the seller states and the loading the seller states. Where a quote is already on carpet area, no loading is needed.
Quote A
The price of the apartment itself, before charges listed separately.
If the seller will not state this in writing, stop here — the comparison cannot be made.
From carpet area up to the basis quoted. The seller's own figure — nothing regulates it and we publish none.
Quote B
The price of the apartment itself, before charges listed separately.
If the seller will not state this in writing, stop here — the comparison cannot be made.
From carpet area up to the basis quoted. The seller's own figure — nothing regulates it and we publish none.
Enter a price and an area for both quotes and the comparison appears here.
Everything is worked out in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, stored, or seen by us.
Limits
What a level comparison still does not settle
Four things the arithmetic leaves out
- If the seller will not state the basis of the quoted area in writing, this tool cannot rescue the comparison and neither can you. An area without its basis is not a small gap in the information; it is the entire question.
- The comparison covers the price of the apartment. It does not cover what else each seller charges — car parking, clubhouse and infrastructure charges, deposits, maintenance advances, taxes and registration. Two quotes level on carpet area can still differ substantially once those lines are added.
- Two apartments at the same figure per square foot of carpet area are not the same purchase. Floor, aspect, the quality of what is fitted, the approvals behind the project and the state its land sits in are not in the arithmetic.
- We publish no figure of our own, for our projects or anyone's. Every number this page reports is computed from what you typed and disappears when you close the tab; nothing is sent anywhere.
Beyond arithmetic
Three things no comparison can know
Your lender's policy
How much of your income a lender will let you commit, what it counts as income, which of your existing obligations it counts, what share of the price it will lend against, and what it does with a co-applicant are all internal policy. Two lenders reading the same file reach different answers, and neither answer is arithmetic.
Your credit assessment
The rate you are offered is set after your file is assessed — bureau record, employment, existing exposure, the property itself. A rate quoted in an advertisement is the best case for the strongest applicant, and a page that assumed it would be quietly wrong for almost everyone.
The rate on the day you sign
Floating rates reprice against an external benchmark, and the benchmark moves. Any schedule computed today is a picture of one assumption held flat for the whole tenure, which is the one thing a floating rate never does.
Questions
Questions this page is asked
- Why can two quotes not simply be compared as they stand?
- Because they may be measured differently. Carpet, built-up and super built-up are three different quantities for the same apartment, and only carpet area is defined by statute — section 2(k) of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016.
- Where does the loading figure come from?
- From the seller, in writing. Nothing regulates the loading factor and no authority publishes one, so the tool asks you for the figure each seller has stated rather than assuming one.
- Does this page publish a price per square foot?
- No. Every figure it reports is computed from the two numbers you typed, on your device. We publish no rate per square foot for our projects or for any area, because we have no basis on which to tell you what a square foot should cost.
Sources
Who publishes what, and what we do not publish
This page holds no rate of any kind. Where a current figure is needed, the body that publishes it is named and linked here.
Regulates the banks and housing finance companies that set lending rates, and publishes the policy rate and the master directions on external benchmark lending rates. The current rate on any product is the lender's to publish, not ours.
The register on which a Karnataka project's registration, its declared timelines and its uploaded agreement format can be checked before any payment is made.
The equivalent register for a Tamil Nadu project, and the authority to whom a complaint about a payment demand in that state is made.
Income Tax Department
Income Tax Department, Government of India (opens in a new tab)www.incometax.gov.in
Publishes the current position on deductions claimed against home loan interest and principal, including the ceilings and the conditions, which change by Finance Act and are not transcribed here.
Every address above was opened on . Government sites move their pages; if one of these no longer resolves, the fact it holds up is unverified until someone finds where it went, not true because it was true once.
Next
Where to go from here
These tools are meant to be used together — an instalment is only half a decision until you have seen what the schedule, the plan and the paperwork do to it.
Ask for the basis in writing, before the price
One question settles most of this: what does the area in your quote measure, and what loading is applied to it? A seller who will answer that in writing has given you a comparison. A seller who will not has given you a number.