Review: Buying a Villa at Renaissance Nature Walk?

In this post, I analyse and review if you should consider buying a row house in Renaissance Nature Walk.

Continuing with the House Hunt series, today I present to you one of our ah! moments.

One where space is the king.

One where light rules, and flows in unhindered.

One where you can spread a chataai on the terrace and gaze at the stars without the exhaust smoke choking your lungs.

One where you can indulge in a hobby.

One where you can take a walk every evening without watching your step for stepping over trash.

One where there is a hint of greenery from the living, dining, and the guest bed room.

One where the windows are not dots on the wall; they are the prominent features.

One where the living room opening up to the green patch gets a character with the double ceiling; it makes you feel the expanse of the space.

Renaissance Nature Walk Property Features:

Builder: Renaissance Holdings and Developers

Location: Off Hoodi Junction in Whitefield.  Can be accessed from both via KR Puram and Hoody.

Landmark: Opposite Diya School, Kodigehalli Main Road.

Total number of units: 147, 4 bed-room row houses ranging from 2,835 sq.ft to 4,660 sq.ft. spread over 14 acres.

Type of units: Row houses ranging from 2,835 sq. ft to to 4,660 sq.ft.

Note: they are NOT villas, but row houses as the individual units share common walls on three sides.

Status: under construction.

Phases: two. Phase 1 hand over started and partially occupied.

Clearances: BDA approved and Occupancy certificate received for Phase 1.

Water source: Mix of Cauvery water and bore water

IGBC green homes, LED streetlights and other features

Pricing: you will have to check. Expect over 2 cr.

View of the garden area from the dining.

Plan of a 4 BHK Villa At Renaissance Nature Walk

There are 4 types of plans spread over three levels: ground, first floor and second floor. The site area varies across plans.

No. of bed rooms: 4.

No. of bath rooms: 4 + powder room + servant bathroom if you retain the servant room.

Other features: one garden area, terrace and one deck in the first floor opening to the road inside the community.

All units have a foyer.

The ground floor has living, dining, kitchen, utility, powder room, and one bed room – a common plan in most villa properties. it would have be nice to have one more bedroom in the ground floor as parents find it difficult to use the upper levels.

The first floor has a family area and two bed rooms, with another bed room and a large hall in the second floor that opens up to a terrace.

Car park: not large enough to park two sedans comfortably.

Dining, living, and guest bed room open upto the garden area which is nice. Renders a beautiful view.

Design flaws: the fixed windows in the living with no cross-circulation for air can be a bane in the summer. It was hot when we visited and there was no provision for a a/c or ceiling fan in the living room. Of course, these will have to be modified if you plan on buying. Given how hot the summer of 2016 was, it will be impossible to site. Imagine a table fan for air in an otherwise beautiful living. Aesthetics at the cost of comfort. The windows facing the exterior cannot be slid up. One is fixed, and the other only goes up in an old fashioned way.

Kitchen size: given the size of the house, the kitchen size is small. Doing away the servant quarters and combining it with the kitchen would make it large, but present an interesting problem for people with live-in maids or visiting drivers. This would have to be again modified.

What we liked about Renaissance Nature Walk:

• Great plan: the truth is it doesn’t take a lot of square footage to design a home with spacious rooms as our old apartment showed us. Yet, over a dozen apartments/villas felt like a treasure hunt or many matchboxes assembled clumsily. This one again stood out for its design and floor plan.
• Double ceiling: For the interior enthusiast not constrained by money and imagination, the double ceiling provides the perfect canvas to be adventurous right from the texture of the surface to expensive chandeliers. It’s up to you what you want to a make a bold statement with. But, the fixed windows in the living and no provision for a/c.
• Room dimensions: you don’t feel a dearth of space in any room except the kitchen.
• Quality fixtures: Good-sized bathrooms and quality bathroom fixtures. All the sinks/faucets/fixtures are either Duravit/Grohe.
• Master bathroom: can be a room in itself; it’s so huge complete with a tub and shower area.
• Paint quality: there is no compromise to this as well as you can see the sheen come through similar to what you see in AP emulsion or even better.

Guest bed room:

This is a typical bath.

This is the deck area accessible from first floor passage and the master bed room.

Master bed room:

What we did not like about Renaissance Nature Walk:

Of course, it comes with its set of flaws:

• Location: location is the king as far as Bangalore goes. Though it is strategically located and accessible from both KR Puram and Hoodi junction, the roads had clearly seen better days.
• Infrastructure: Traffic moving at a snail’s pace would be an understatement. One needs to find the road among the potholes.
• Neighborhood: despite the property, it is not an upscale neighborhood which makes everyday living a nightmare from availability of maids to regular grocery. When we went to visit this property and stopped by to pick something, we were told “yeh sab yahan nahi chaltha hai. Koi kareedtha nahi hai.”
• Hospitals: no hospitals in the vicinity of 2 Kms. The closest ones would be Cloud Nine, Narayana (ITPL) and RxDx. There are weren’t many neighborhood clinics when we first visited.
• Schools: One advantage of the ORR/Varthur area is the proximity to schools. Except Deen’s Academy, Ryan and Gopalan, there aren’t many schools in the vicinity. If your child happens to go to one on Varthur Road/ORR, add an extra hour to his/her commute time each way.
• Everyday challenges of maid/cook/school/hospitals trump the highlights of the property considering that we on an average spend eight hours outside home everyday, and would rather stay closer to school than add an extra hour tothe  child’s commute time. Of course, it’s a personal decision.
• Public transportation: staying on ORR at a strategic location, I reaped the benefits of traveling to any part of the town (be it Banashankari/Majestic-Shivaji Nagar/Hebbal-Airport) by the Volvo buses. I was always only 150 meters away to a bus stop from our doorstep. The location of this property is such that even getting an auto unless it is a shared one would be tough. Ola/Uber are sometimes tough to get for hours. Nothing can beat the convenience of pubic transport when you need it the most. So a second car is a must.
• Quality: water seepage issues, reverse slope in 2/3 bathrooms, hollow floor tiles, broken/cracked wooden doors, railings and handles. Workmanship of a good quality, what should go without saying, is absent. One can never really be sure until one starts living.
• Delay in handing over and livability amidst all the construction. It can be nerve-wracking to hear concrete structures being demolished next door all day which makes working/living in such a place with dust and sound a pain.
• Size of the clubhouse: too small for 147 houses with just one badminton court.

Updated on 11th July:

After due thought, title changed from “Light floods Renaissance Nature Walk” to “Should you consider buying a row/villa at Nature Walk?”

I gave it some thought and felt it was fair to be objective with this project as I have been with the others. So more points for you to consider:

• Construction delay.
• For a premium project such as this, there is no uniformity in the layout at least from the exterior. Extensive modifications that affect the exteriors and the overall timeline of the project.
• Poor quality of construction despite premium fixtures that lead to sloping issues in bathrooms, cracking of doors, staircase railings, seepage in the living room etc.
• Realistic date of completion of clubhouse.
• Though you may have a relative advantage of price, it will be a few years before you can reap the benefits of a mature community.
• State of the roads in the area.
• Not everything that glitters is gold. In the case of such projects, model villas are gold. You must really scratch the surface to understand the merits.

After seeing this house, we came back with a smile in our faces, a desire in our heart and a line of tension on our foreheads. All good things come with a price. Some things just cost more than the others. But, we knew that space was not a constraint. Paint a wall in bold color. Hang your art work. Go rustic. Go sophisticated. The choices are endless. But, a pretty house cannot negate your everyday struggles.

Final verdict: THINK before you buy. Do your homework. Go beyond the plan. Though you may be sold on the quality of fixtures, construction quality, modification and costs involved is altogether a different ball game.

Do let me know if you would like to see more analyses of houses, and any areas in particular.

Images:

All taken by me on location.

Location map and Plan