Total EnvironmentDown by the Water

Down by the Water is a furnished housing complex on 17.5 acres along the Jakkur Lake. Five towers rise 17 floors high and face the lake, with the area in between reserved for central greens, a coastal promenade and shaded alleyways. The current phase consists of 602 residences, with a master plan that develops to more than 1,200 homes. Each flat is constructed with a terrace garden so that the vegetation may be viewed from the ground up the elevation. What is special about the project is that the landscape and the building were planned at the same time, by the same hand, not one after the other.

The homes will come in five formats, which includes three big 3 BHKs and two 4 BHKs, ranging from 2,490 sft to 6,480 sft. Each concept is focused on living, eating and terrace-garden area instead of putting in beds. The types are separated by spaces such as a study, a home office or a maid's room. The homes are finished in either a Blue or Purple palette and may be customized through our eDesign platform.

The density is low by design for an area of this size. The spacing of the towers allows for isolation and cross-ventilation, sightlines to the lake and the greens, and leaves some four-fifths of the land as open space. The 24,000 sft clubhouse has a walk-on green roof, open-to-sky pool and an inside heated pool. The shared environment includes an amphitheatre, play courts, a canine club and a network of walking and cycling trails.

Towers 4 and 5 are now available to book, with Towers 1, 2 and 3 opening in June 2029. Homes open at Rs 5.62 Cr for a Blue specification, before floor-rise, lake-facing and Purple-specification premiums. The project is registered with Karnataka RERA and offers various payment options like construction linked plans and early possession options, providing the buyers the freedom to personalize the purchase as per their requirement.

This is a beautifully planned out green, low density community read as a whole not a high count tower stack. It's for families who want space and quiet and a home that becomes better with age, and for buyers who care as much about a certain design character as they do about a cost per square foot. The lake, the gardens and the clubhouse are shared amenities that no unit can provide by itself and therefore this is why the site feels settled before it is complete.

The project is located at Jakkur, off the Airport Road in North Bangalore, on the edge of Jakkur Lake. Once a tranquil suburb on the lake and the former aerodrome, the area has transformed into one of the most sought-after residential belts of the city, courtesy good schools, hospitals, shops, hotels and its proximity to the airport. Jakkur is tranquil, well connected, surrounded by water and greenery and city bustle at a short drive.

Connectivity Outer Ring Road belt, Airport Road. Manyata Tech Park is at a very close distance of around 5.9 km and malls and hospitals of North Bangalore are just a drive away. Kempegowda International Airport is a comfortable 25-26 km drive up the highway, and is crucial to the well-travelled professionals and families that want to settle in this portion of the city. The setting is set back from the noise of the major roadways but makes daily travel practical.

It is worth thinking about traffic in peak hours on arterial roadways. There are still a few municipal items in the close surrounds filling up as the area matures. But the planned metro station at Jakkur Cross is supposed to cut down the commute to Hebbal and the airport, the kind of construction that often enhances convenience and value together in the years ahead.

It is the everyday depth, not the well-placed one, that makes a place liveable and Jakkur has it. Schools like Legacy School and Bangalore International School are a few minutes drive. Nearby are shopping malls imclude the Phoenix Mall of Asia and Bhartiya Mall. Healthcare is well provided for in the north. The lake and the Jakkur Aerodrome lend the area a low-rise character that much of the city has lost.

It is the lake itself that is most magnificent. Lakefront is rare, and once a shoreline is developed, it doesn't reopen. If you are a buyer and want to settle down in some part of North Bangalore, a lakeside corner with expanding connectivity is a rare combination that tends to age in the owner’s favour.

Bangalore is the heart of India's technology economy and that engine is its housing market. There is a stable base of technology and corporate jobs to support demand for good homes, a steady flow of professionals and a developing network of metro lines and road corridors and an international airport that continues siphoning expansion away. The city has depth of jobs and depth of housing at the same time, something unique for a homebuyer.

The northern half of the city is the most active direction of the city’s growth. The northern belt of Jakkur, Yelahanka, Hebbal, Thanisandra and Devanahalli has been a magnet for end users and investors owing to closeness to the airport, aerospace and technology corridors and large employment parks. Metro connectivity is likely to add another leg of demand as stations come up and branded releases of luxury flats in North Bangalore have lifted the address over the recent years.

Prices in North Bangalore have been on a solid upward trend with luxury lakeside neighbourhoods around Jakkur commanding a notable premium over wider locality average. Land values along the corridor are expected to appreciate further over the next years. They will be supported by the strength of the infrastructure pipeline and sustained corporate absorption. Past performance is not indicative of future results and any acquisition has its own due diligence requirements.

It's the scope, not simply the technology, that makes the market resilient. Financial services, research, aerospace, healthcare and a vibrant startup culture all add to the need while the workforce filling those positions is young, mobile and renting-active. People opt to live in the city for its weather and green quality rather than travel through.

Bangalore is a well-known transparent market with RERA monitoring, a large pool of professional tenants and a long runway of employment-led demand, notably for abroad and out-of-city buyers. This is the situation where properties that are well-located and well-built tend to retain and add to their value and North Bangalore with its airport and technology pull is one of the more obvious examples of this phenomenon in the country today.

Down by the Water is RERA Registered (Karnataka No. PRM/KA/RERA/1251/472/PR/090824/006967) Registration indicates that the project is officially registered with the state regulator, and its plans, schedules and progress are on file. Details are available on the RERA site for public viewing. As a potential buyer we would recommend to seek for the RERA number of Down by the Water first.

Registration is important since it offers a means of verification. Buyers can check out the approved plans, definitions of carpet vs saleable area, stated completion deadlines and quarterly progress updates directly on the regulator’s web rather. They do not need to completely rely on marketing alone. We would always recommend that a purchaser read the registration and project files at the same time as the brochure so that the promise on the page and the record with the regulator can be seen together.

Within this framework we have expectations of handover. The registration filing and tracking is for the following timelines: Towers 1, 2, and 3 are planned to be available from June 2029, Towers 4 and 5 are open for booking. With a purchase on an under-construction project being spread over several years, a good method to keep a developer on its toes is to couple the filings with periodic checks on the state of development.

Registration also governs the transaction itself. They are all part of the framework of the registration agreement, the construction-linked payment schedule and the statutory charges and reading them carefully, preferably with independent legal aid, is part of a smart purchase.

It helps to know what registration promises and doesn’t. It monitors the project, its plans and deadlines and offers a public window and grievance channel for buyers, but there is no alternative for personal research of title, approvals and the print. We feel that registration is the minimum, not the most, of obligation and would prefer a purchaser to over-check rather than under-check on a transaction of this nature.

Total Environment Building Systems is a Bangalore based green residential building developer, with design at its core. The Group has been noted for its identifiable and unique building approach featuring earth sheltered dwellings, green roofs, integrated landscape, natural light, cross ventilation and handcrafted finishing with high degree of in house control. Nature and craft are part of the homes, not décor. Across all residences it is the common thread running across the portfolio, apartments, villas and plotted communities.

You can see that philosophy in this project. This is a developer with a decades-long philosophy of every property having its own terrace garden, the clubhouse having a walk-on green roof, retaining trees and a low density plan, not simply for a one-off scheme. The aim to manage the experience of the home, from the architecture to the interior finishes, is the same for the furnished hand-over and the eDesign customization platform, so the result seems like a planned end-to-end process.

The developer is present in Bangalore and other places, has a track record of providing homes and has a client base built over years. A record such as this is valuable as it tells a buyer about intent and standards. As with any developer we would recommend buyers to look at the delivery record, in addition to the project’s own RERA disclosures.

This project is different from other projects in the region in that it has less signature than size. The style, brick toned, planted, low density, is hard to duplicate, and the houses aren’t designed to appear like everyone else’s. For buyers who desire that individuality, and who value the craft and green-first thinking that goes into it, the developer’s own personality is a significant part of the urge to chose here over elsewhere.

The inhouse process improves the ownership experience after hand-over. The in house control on design, build and much of the finish makes for a more uniform home and a clearer line of duty for that home and the same discipline goes through to the long term upkeep of the community. By continuing to construct rather than selling off and moving on, a builder can preserve a green, detail-laden community that appears as it did on day one.

The homes here are 3 BHK and 4 BHK. The properties are furnished and in a gated, amenity packed environment. A flat is a unit with a title in a bigger association. The common areas, clubhouse, pools and landscaping are all owned and maintained in common. The benefit of the construction for many buyers is the amenities, the protection and the maintained surroundings of a managed community, without the individual burden of owning a freestanding home.

In North Bangalore, the flat layout blueprints are very generous. The 4 BHK apartments are as spacious as 6,480 sft and sizes across the spectrum start from 2,490 sft upwards, with a terrace garden integrated into each house – a private slice of outdoors that apartments rarely offer at this scale. What sets the styles apart is not bedroom stuffing but add-on rooms. A 3 BHK can have a study or a home office and larger homes can have a maid’s room, enabling families to mould the space to suit their lifestyle.

The flats are particularly suited to investment and lock-and-leave, which is an issue for the overseas and professional buyers this neighbourhood attracts. It is relatively easy to rent out a managed furnished property in a good rental catchment and acquire a gated community in Jakkur from afar with its own security and care. One association means no variation in management of common areas and the experience is the same for owner occupiers and tenants.

And the format is in good shape when the surrounding community is effectively run, as this developer has set out to accomplish here. The pools, the clubhouse, the greens and the boardwalk are community assets, administered in common. Their upkeep does not depend upon the time or the inclination of any one owner. That consistency is also good for selling and renting, because a buyer or tenant is getting an address that is maintained, not just a stand-alone property.

Living here in a flat is a decision of a certain manner of living, green, low density and serviced. It’s a choice for the lake and the clubhouse that no single property could provide by itself. For those who purchase a flat rather than a stand-alone house, the trade-off is individual control for community, amenity and ease and in a lakefront location of this kind it is a concession many are happy to make.

The investment case is a situation of scarcity. Lakefronting land is a finite resource and a created shoreline doesn’t reopen, thus a lakefront address has a structural premium that can’t be replicated elsewhere in the same region. Add to this a location that is just getting better with Airport Road access today and the impending Jakkur Cross metro tomorrow, in a northern corridor that has been one of the strongest in Bangalore both in terms of demand and price movement.

This is a furnished design-led property that will save the owner a year of fit-out and will hit the top of the local rental band. The developer’s distinctive low-density approach means the residences are less interchangeable than the flat in a normal tower block. The professional rental pool especially in and around Manyata Tech Park, in the ORR belt is strong and promoting occupancy for owners who are renting out their property. Community maintenance and security make it possible to own property remotely.

The market environment is sound. North Bangalore has shown good appreciation in the previous few years and the premium Jakkur enclave is quoted at a significant premium to the greater area. The infrastructural pipeline and continuing absorption by corporates will lead to significant appreciation in land values in the corridor over the next few years. Here is the illustrative path, with the usual caution that past success is no guarantee of future results.

And for a lot of clients, it works to diversify and it works to denominate.” Hard assets in a strong Indian metro may offset equity-heavy or offshore property portfolios and NRI apartments in Bangalore like these can be attractive on the currency angle alone at the entry point. Furnished flat means faster ownership to income and the freedom to stay, let or depart affords opportunities as circumstances change. The information provided is, like with any purchase, suggestive and should be carefully verified.

In that sense, an ultra-luxury lakefront home is more a hedge against appreciation investment than a return investment with the rental yield providing the cover for the carry expenses. The core argument is that if you’re a long horizon buyer who values rarity, brand and actual lakefront position and are comfortable with a multi-year building runway then the combination of a rare address and an improved corridor is the core argument.

North Bangalore is eyeing this one of the new launch apartments and still under building this community has no resident base yet and we would not pretend otherwise. There are no user reviews, star ratings or testimonials to report on and any that do get passed around should be taken with a grain of salt. The only thing that is sure is that the initial comments have been characterized by two things buyers keep repeating - the scarcity of a genuine lakeside property in North Bangalore and the green handcrafted signature of the developer that is being recognized.

The buyers we chat to tend to have similar areas that spark the most interest. The lake frontage and boardwalk, the terrace garden to each property, the low density design and the furnished hand over which takes out a year of fit out. The live-in-before-you-buy option has also struck a chord, since the chance to live in a home before committing to it appeals to the natural hesitancy of such a large purchase while it’s still being built.

And the inquiries that customers ask are no more consistent and equal. Construction schedule is stretched to 2029 thus cash is tied up for a few years. The admittance ticket of Rs 5.62 Cr is undoubtedly in the ultra-premium category, which is further augmented by the effective cost after adding the floor-rise, lake-facing and purple-specification costs. These are the trade-offs to the category and we’d prefer a consumer weigh them up clearly than discover them late.

We read this community as being for a certain purchaser. For the long term buyer who values serenity, space and unique character of design over the lowest rate per square foot. Welcoming the buyer with open arms and the essentials are fitting into place nicely. But if you are looking for short term rental income or a quick exit then you must ponder long runway and premium price before you book.

Let us define our expectations now, so we do not have to face disappointment later. This is a home in development and lived in evaluations will be available only after families move in from 2029. Until then, judge a project by its foundations, by its files and the developer’s track record, not on unsubstantiated word of mouth. Visit the site and model flat, verify the registration and where feasible, speak to owners of the developer’s current communities. Buyers that do their homework, likely to come to a clear, decisive decision.