Commercial property surprises - bangalore version
I was looking to buy a commercial retail showroom in Bengaluru. Asking price: ₹3 crore for ~1,000 sq ft. I asked the broker to call the owner. I wanted to negotiate. On the call, I told the owner: “₹3 crore feels quite expensive to me. I think ₹2.4 crore is a fair valuation. If you’re comfortable around that number, we can close it.” There was silence. A few seconds passed. And then… the owner started talking. For the next 35 minutes, he spoke. I barely said a word. He told me he had bought the property from the builder for ₹2.5 crore, 10 years ago. His argument was simple: “After holding it for 10 years, can’t I even expect a 20% return?” Then he added: “Everything is white. You can check the sale deed. The price is all there.” Fair enough. But then came the part that completely changed how I looked at the property. The showroom was generating roughly a 5–6% rental yield. Sounds okay, right? Except there was a problem. The rent was almost the same as it was 10...