Rent a flat or a house in Chennai

(moderated: please post in the classifieds section and not on the forum. Thank you.)

Its not hard at all to find a place. Most newspapers carry real estate ads once/twice a week. There are lots of websites too.
Rent ranges from 15000 to 3 lakh rupees depending upon the class of accomodation.

I have a 3 bedroom independent house to let out in South Chennai.(moderated: please post your ad in the housing in Chennai section)

[Moderated: No free ad on the forum]

Like everything in India, housing is fraught with peril, corruption, greed and middle men trying to horn in on the deal, sometimes several middle men. 

The first trick is to have a local find the place and do the negotiating before you show your expat face or the price will double.  Fraudulent deals abound and the terms are userous.

Watch out for agents that show you a total dump at 70,000 to convince you that 2 lakh is what you really need to be paying.  You really need a trusted local to do the talking and play the game.  Like everything else, the real price may be 40% of the first quote.

Only pay one commission.  Figuring out who it goes to can be hard but you only pay one guy and let them figure it out.  If your agent does not know the landlord, you have the wrong guy.

Try and go direct to the landlord if you can.  It saves a lot of grief later.

Location, location, location.  Most important is proximity to work because the traffic is a noisy, disorganized, nightmare.  Second is proximity to services that you can walk to easily.  There are nice places all over, do not live in Anna Nagar if the office is in Velacherry.

Looking for a flat is some what easy it depends on the amount that you are looking for and the rent is depend on the area where you are looking in the high class area like anna nagar, t nagar, ashok nagar the rent are some what costly.

[Moderated: pls post an advert in the housing section]