Search for an apartment starts ...

Next urgent item in the list was getting an apartment.
       
This one was a hassle - as I said before, we couldn't settle on one before we left US and had to do that once we reached here. Given schools were going to start in 2 weeks, we didn't have much of time buffer to look, compare and settle on one. Added to that, the availability of apartments in the area we were looking wasn't good at all (contrary to what we were told earlier). If we push the decision to all the way last minute, the time we get to settle the kids in before they start the school was going to be very small and kids won't be comfortable in the new setting. Approach we took was to - directly go to the apartment complexes in the area, approach the security and ask for agent contact details. There was a challenge here as well - the owners who wanted to rent where not available immediately and we were asked to reach back during the next week.
       
Couple of important things to note:
- If you take a look at the school's website, they would list the pick-up points and the timings. But, DON'T SETTLE BASED ON THAT INFORMATION!!!! In our case, the apartment complex which was listed as the last pick-up point with 7:45am pick-up time ended up being the first pick-up point when the school gave us the timing, with 7:15am pick-up time!!! We were indeed targeting this apartment but fortunately(!) didn't get one there. Adding extra 30 mins to kids morning time can cause significant inconvenience when every minute counts in the morning.
 

- Also, to make sure, school does have a pick-up point at the apartment that you are selecting. No kidding - crossing roads in Bangalore is not easy and for US born kids this can be hazardous. They are assumed to drivers yielding to pedestrians and not going to happen with Indian traffic anytime soon. Best thing is to have school bus pick-up the kids in-front of the gate and drop them off in-front of the apartment gate - saves you from lots of anxiety.  If kids are old enough, you can even provide a set of keys to home and they can get inside the apartment, without waiting outside.
           
Hence, we had to decide fairly quickly and I would say risk is not that high going with an apartment. Most of the basic things like water, electricity etc are taken care and that saves lots of time. Additional services like access to maids, drinking water supply, car drivers etc are much easier in the apartment setting. Go with the one which is fairly closer to school.


When I was relocating, we didn't have much idea on how the apartments in Bangalore would look. For example, there is no real need to ship dresser tables etc since most of the units have built-in wardrobes. To give an idea on how the current apartment setup looks in Bangalore, have provided some pics below ...

Living Room

Living Room

Kitchen

Bathroom #1

Bathroom #2

Bedroom with wardrobes

Apartment Gym facility

Appreciate your feedback and comments, please leave a comment if you found this post useful (or not!) ...