Getting a house built through builder or contractor? Remember these points

If you are building a house with builder/contractor supplying both the building material and labour, keep the following essential points in mind for avoiding any dispute later and peace of mind during construction. These are just a small set of points for getting a good house structure built. 

 1. Suppose your plot area is 1000 sq ft and you want to have a stamped agreement with a builder for constructing a double storey house on this plot. Sly builders often quote a lower built-up area (generally, built up area is the roof area and is measured for final construction cost). Once the construction reaches the first floor, the builder will say that the built-up area will exceed the built-up area of the deal if you want to construct second floor according to your plan. For the extra build-up area construction, he will demand extra. To prevent this situation, in the beginning itself when you are making the agreement, make sure that you deal with the builder to build a house with built-up area equal to your plot area (2000 sq ft in this example) plus stair-cover/mumty. Another thing is to insist on getting a full plan of the house before the construction begins that has build-up area equal to the area that you have mutually agreed upon. Do not give him any advance money until that plan is with you. Then insist on construction according to that plan. If builder says that plans may change during the construction, he may have that hidden agenda. Tell him the structure plan will not change. 

 2. Never sign an agreement where the column reinforcement bar size is lower than 12mm. Ring bars may be smaller, but no less than 8mm, and should be ribbed. 

 3. Note also to use concrete grade M20 (1-2-4 ratio of cement-sand-aggregate) or higher such as M25 (1-1-2) for beams and slabs. [ NOTE: During construction you need to observe that the labourers/workers are following the grade mix. For some reason, they tend to use less aggregate and more sand than the recommended grade ratio.] 

 4. Use sufficient columns in design. Generally, for every corner and room joints in the house rooms there should be a column. If the room size is large, 18 foot or more, insist on a column in the middle. 

5. In a house, generally there are 4 types of beams: 

 i. plinth beam whose upper end is at the floor level (unless you do some brick-work on top of plinth beam and then do DPC on top; DPC then becomes the floor level). 

 ii. Lintel beam (sometimes also called door band) that is smaller beam that runs just above the doors and windows (normally at 7 ft above floor level) 

 iii. Drop beam (also called roof beam, wall beam or latak beam) is put along with the roof slab and it hangs below the roof. 

 iv. Hidden beam (also called concealed beam, gutti or hajmi beam) is reinforcement that is as thick as the roof slab but is wider across the roof. It is often used by builders in place of drop beam for cost-cutting. 

 As a rule of thumb, in the agreement insist on plinth beam, DPC, lintel beam at every floor, and drop beams at every slab.

Is it a time!?

This could be the best time to invest equities. Share prices have fallen to such extents and P/E rations are in lower single digits for many companies.

Difference between Growth option and Dividend Reinvestment option in MF

So what is the difference between Growth (G) option and Dividend Reinvestment (DR) option of a Mutual Fund. At present, there is no difference.

There is no entry load when the dividend is reinvested in DR scheme. The dividend is simply used to buy back shares at the new NAV. As a result, the net effect of DR is same as it would have been in a Growth scheme.
If the tax policy changes in the future to either introduce dividend distribution tax, or long term capital gains tax, it would adversely affect DR and G options, respectively.

Smorty - blog for money service

As part of my posts about blogging for money services, I will discuss about another such website today. Smorty is one of the get paid to blog services that connects advertisers and bloggers. Advertisers pay bloggers to put links on blogs and write about their service to get traffic and create buzz. A regularly updated blog has good chance of getting accepted. They, however, reject blogs if the content is not updated frequently, is not indexed by Google and Yahoo, or is not at least 3 months old. This service is only available for blogs in English.

Smorty's interface is easy and any publisher can easily set up an account. The offers for review are priced based on the Page Rank of a blog. More Page Rank sites gets higher paying campaign offers. They also have a combined score called smarty score based on Google Page Rank, Alexa ranking, return rate of given tasks, approval rate of completed tasks and the number of completed tasks. Blogs scoring higher get higher paid offers.

One advantage of Smorty is that one can submit as many blogs as he/she wants unlike some other blog for money services. This is greatly beneficial for small time bloggers. Another advantage is the payment which is a weekly system. So bloggers get paid every week for the previews done last week through PayPal. One can apply from any country for Smorty's service.

One of the limitations of Smorty at present is that one can't submit more than one blog from the same account. One has to create as many accounts if he/she wants to submit many blogs as a publisher. They say they are working on fixing this issue. Also, it seems there are limited number advertisers for blog advertising at Smorty. This puts it at a disadvantage as compared to other more established names in the blog for money services. Hopefully, as the service gets older, more advertisers will register for Smorty.

Mortgage loan guide

I was reading a blog post by Deepak Shenoy the other day in which he mentioned some terms in the US that are unique and not used elsewhere. One of the terms mentioned was Mortgage. It's used when a person applies for a loan to buy a house in the US. It is pretty expensive to buy a house and so most people would find it impossible to pay the price in cash. Not to mention, the tax man would come calling if someone did pay cash.

Mortgage is a common term used in the US for house loans. There's a useful website with links to many useful articles to learn more about mortgage. Mortgage Loan Place has articles ranging from FHA loans to Reverse mortgage to Mortgage insurance and Refinancing. Some of these are complicated terms (e.g. Reverse mortgage) and there are many articles in the guide to make you understand them better. I found the articles interesting to read even though I went to the page to do this review.

The guide gives information on any policy changes and housing market. Buying a house is a dream for most people and one of the most important decisions in their life. Being well aware of the current situation in the market is a must for anyone. The articles in Mortgage Loan Place are one of the easiest way to learn more about loans. The articles are free to read and updated regularly. Anyone interested in knowing more about the housing loans can go read them.

Life Insurance for Key Man

Among different types of insurance that companies buy, key man life insurance is usually neglected. Businesses that protect their assets like buildings and other properties forget to protect their key men. The key man of a business is an important person who is essential to run the business. An obvious key man is the CEO. There can be other important employees like General Managers who can be insured using the Key Man Life Insurance.

Most insurance companies provide this type of insurance for businesses. Among the various ways to get quotes from these insurance companies, getting it online is the easiest one. One can get quote online for key man life insurance.

In case of the death of the key man, the face value of the money he is insured against can be used to hire new key man or other employee. It can be very useful for a business in such scenarios.