The amenity list, sorted by how often you would actually use it

The published list runs to more than twenty-five recreations: a clubhouse, gymnasium, swimming pool, jogging track, landscaped garden, yoga zone, kids’ play area, indoor games area, multipurpose court, amphitheatre, a senior citizens’ area, a multipurpose hall and more.

Every one of those costs money to build and money to maintain, and you pay for all of them every month whether or not you go. So the question worth asking is not how many there are. It is which ones a household like yours actually touches.

Used daily or near enough

• The jogging track and the landscaped garden. The two most used amenities in almost every Indian society, by a wide margin, and the two least likely to appear in the sales pitch. They cost the least to run and they get walked on every single evening.
• The kids’ play area, if you have children under twelve. Then it is daily and it is not close.
• The gymnasium, for a genuine minority of residents, but that minority uses it four or five times a week.

Used weekly

• The swimming pool. Heavily used in summer, quiet for four months of the year, and one of the most expensive things on the list to maintain properly. Ask whether the maintenance budget covers a trained lifeguard and daily water treatment, or only cleaning.
• The multipurpose court. Consistently used by teenagers and by adults who organise a weekly game. Ask whether it is floodlit, because an unlit court is a daytime amenity in a place where most people are at work during the day.
• The indoor games area, which becomes the default monsoon amenity and sits idle the rest of the year.

Used a few times a year

• The amphitheatre. Genuinely lovely for Ganpati, Diwali and a society day. Empty for the other 360.
• The multipurpose hall, for birthdays and family functions. Worth having, and worth checking the booking rules and the charge before you count it as free.
• The yoga zone, which in practice is usually a quiet corner of the deck that a few residents use consistently and everyone else uses once.

What to check rather than count

1. Which amenities are in which phase. On a multi-phase site the clubhouse is often built with a later phase. If you move into phase two and the pool arrives with phase five, you will pay for it long before you swim in it. Ask for the amenity delivery schedule against the phase you are buying.
2. Which are on the sanctioned plan. A render is not a commitment. The amenities filed on the MahaRERA record for your phase are.
3. Whether the clubhouse is shared with all eleven towers or split. Up to 924 homes sharing one gymnasium is a different experience from the render.
4. What the society can afford to run once handover happens. Amenities are built by the developer and maintained by the residents. The gap between those two facts is where half-empty clubhouses come from.

The honest summary

Twenty-five amenities is a real advantage over five, but not because you will use twenty-five of them. It is an advantage because the six or seven your household does use will be there, and because a project built with that much shared space tends to have been planned with open area rather than around it.

Buy the walk to the garden and the safe place for children to be outside. Treat the rest as upside.