Buying a home is the largest single decision most families make, and in India it is also one of the least explained. People ask about the price and the carpet area and almost never about the title, the approvals or the order the payments come in. The order matters, because it is what protects you.
Start with the title and the approvals, not the floor plan. Ask the developer for the title documents, the diversion order, the layout sanction and the building permission, and ask for the RERA registration number. Every project under construction above a certain size must be registered with the Chhattisgarh RERA, and you can look the number up yourself on the authority's website. A developer who hands these over without being chased is telling you something useful about how the rest of the purchase will go.
Then work out your real budget. The price of the home is not the cost of the home. Add stamp duty and registration, which in Chhattisgarh runs to several percent of the consideration value, add GST if the home is under construction, add the cost of parking, maintenance deposits and any club charges, and add what it will cost you to actually move in, because an empty house needs fans, lights, curtains and a kitchen before it is liveable.
Get your loan sanctioned before you choose, not after. A sanction letter tells you what you can borrow, and it turns a shortlist of ten houses into a shortlist of three. Most banks and housing finance companies lend against a RERA-registered project without much friction; a project they will not lend against is worth a second look.
Visit the site more than once, and visit at different times. A colony that is calm on a Sunday morning can be something else at six on a weekday evening. Walk the approach road. Check how far the nearest school, clinic and daily market actually are rather than how far the brochure says. If the project is part-occupied, knock on a door and ask the people who live there.
When you are ready, the paperwork follows a set order: a booking amount, then an allotment letter, then an agreement to sell on stamp paper, then the payment schedule, and finally the sale deed and registration at the sub-registrar's office. Read the agreement to sell properly, and take it to a lawyer if anything in it is not plain to you. The possession date, the penalty if that date slips, and what exactly is included in the price are the three clauses worth arguing over.
Keep every receipt and every letter in one file. Years later, when you sell, the buyer's lawyer will ask for them, and the file you kept is what makes that sale easy.
If you are at the stage of shortlisting, our residential projects page lists what is ready to move and what is under construction, with RERA numbers and starting prices for each, including The Parksyde in Kachna, Raipur, which has move-in-ready homes today.