Every price we give a buyer is a price per square foot carpet area figure, using carpet area as the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act defines it. We do not quote super built-up, we do not quote built-up, and we do not quote the older Mumbai measure that brokers still call MOFA carpet. This note explains why, and what that choice costs us on the first phone call.
The arithmetic behind it already sits in our piece on carpet, built-up and super built-up, which shows how one flat can be described in three sizes and how a lower headline rate can hide a more expensive home. This piece does not repeat it. It is the argument that sits on top of that arithmetic: what the RERA carpet area rules were meant to change, why most of the market found a way around them, and how a developer can price so that a buyer never needs that explainer at all.
What the Act asked for in 2017
Parliament passed the Act in 2016, and its main sections came into force on 1 May 2017. Maharashtra set up MahaRERA the same day and gave ongoing projects until 31 July 2017 to register. The RERA Act 2016 carpet area definition, in Section 2(k), was one of its plainest provisions: the net usable floor area of a flat, inside the walls, leaving out balconies, verandahs and open terraces.
The intent was never only a definition. Once every registered project had to file RERA Act 2016 carpet area figures, and every agreement for sale had to state one, buyers would be able to compare two buildings on the same measure. Prices would follow the area a family actually lives in. That was the idea.
Maharashtra had tried this before. The state's older flat law, the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act of 1963, already asked for carpet area in agreements, but its definition was loose enough to take in balconies and flower beds. The market learnt to sell on a larger figure and still call it carpet.
What the market did instead
It complied on paper. The agreement states RERA carpet, the MahaRERA filing states RERA carpet, and the price in the brochure, the hoarding and the broker's message is often quoted on something else.
Three workarounds are common in Mumbai. The first is the plain super built-up quote, which still dominates resale and survives in new launches through channel partners. The second is MOFA carpet, which can be 5 to 10 per cent larger than RERA carpet for the same flat because it counts the balcony and the dry area. The third is the most recent: a cost sheet that shows RERA carpet plus a separate line for exclusive balcony, verandah and terrace area, and then prices the total at a single rate. Each one gives a smaller rate per square foot on the hoarding and the same total price on the agreement.
None of them breaks the RERA carpet area rules. All of them make a buyer do sums the Act was supposed to make unnecessary.
Why builders quote super built up
We have been asked by brokers, and by people inside the industry, why builders quote super built up when RERA lets nobody hide behind it any more. The honest answers are commercial.
A bigger area makes a smaller rate, and buyers remember the rate. On a portal page with forty listings, a building quoting ₹38,000 per square foot looks cheaper than one quoting ₹50,000, even when the second flat is larger inside and costs less in total. Channel partners are briefed on rates, compare on rates, and are paid on totals, so they have no reason to correct the comparison.
The resale market reinforces it. Most flats sold in Mumbai each year are resales, which sit outside RERA, and a buyer's sense of what Dadar or Matunga costs comes from resale quotes in super built-up. A new project quoting on carpet looks 30 per cent dearer than the market it is trying to join, which is the other half of why builders quote super built up.
How developers price flats in Mumbai, ours included
It helps to be clear about where a rate comes from, because how developers price flats in Mumbai is rarely explained by a developer.
The cost of a flat is built up from the land or the society's redevelopment entitlement, the premiums paid to the municipal corporation and the state for additional floor space, the cost of construction, the interest on the money borrowed to fund it, and a margin. Construction is spent on the whole building, staircases and lift lobbies included. The loading that super built-up describes is real concrete, and someone pays for it.
So quoting on carpet does not make the lobby free. Our rate per square foot of carpet includes the share of the common areas that a super built-up quote would have shown as extra area. The total is the same either way. What changes is that the number a buyer compares is the number they will live in.
Quoting on carpet does not make the lobby free; it only stops the lobby from being sold to you as part of your living room.
How we price, line by line
Our cost sheets follow one rule: the price per square foot carpet area figure is calculated on RERA carpet, and nothing else is folded into it.
- The flat is priced at a single rate on its RERA carpet area, the figure the RERA Act 2016 carpet area definition produces and the same one that appears in the MahaRERA filing and the agreement for sale.
- Any exclusive balcony or deck is stated as its own area, outside the carpet figure, and its price is shown as a separate line.
- Car parking, if a buyer takes it, is a separate line.
- Development charges, society formation and legal charges are separate lines, each with a number.
- GST, stamp duty and registration are shown as estimates on the same sheet, so the total a buyer sees is the total they will pay.
We publish our carpet areas on our project pages for the same reason. A buyer looking at 3 BHK flats in Matunga, or at new projects in Worli, should be able to divide our total by our carpet area and get our rate, without a meeting.
What it costs us
This is not a costless position, and it would be dishonest to present it as one.
On a portal, our price per square foot carpet area figure sits beside neighbours quoting super built-up and looks 25 to 35 per cent higher. Some buyers never call, and some brokers stop bringing them. Among residential projects in Matunga, where a family looking at 3 BHK flats in Matunga often compares three or four buildings within walking distance, the first conversation can be spent explaining why our number is bigger before we have shown anyone a flat.
The gap grows with the rate. Among new projects in Worli, where a quote can pass ₹70,000 a square foot, a 35 per cent loading moves the headline number by more than ₹18,000.
We also lose the option of a hoarding rate. A rate ending in a round, low number is the cheapest piece of marketing in this city, and we do not get to use it.
We accept that, because the buyers who do call arrive with a comparison that holds up. Search for transparent pricing real estate India and most of what comes back is advice to buyers rather than commitments from developers. That only changes when developers who can afford the cost go first, and when other residential projects in Matunga and beyond see that buyers reward it.
How to check us, or anyone else
A MahaRERA registration check takes ten minutes, and it is the one place where every developer's numbers are on the same footing.
- Start the MahaRERA registration check on the MahaRERA website, using the registration number printed on the brochure and the hoarding.
- Open the project's filed details and find the building-wise table of flat types and carpet areas.
- Divide the quoted total for the flat by the carpet area in that table. That is the real price per square foot carpet area rate, whatever the hoarding says.
- Read the draft agreement for the clause on variation in carpet area at possession. Under the RERA carpet area rules as Maharashtra applies them in its model agreement, a shortfall of more than 3 per cent is refunded to the buyer.
Run that MahaRERA registration check on the next project you visit, and on ours. The RERA carpet area rules work when buyers use them, and most buyers have never been told how. The next Developer POV piece moves from how developers price flats in Mumbai to how they size them, and makes the case for compact 1 and 2 BHK homes in the corridor.
Gala Habitats has three ongoing projects, each registered with MahaRERA and each listed with its carpet area on our site: Paramount Matunga (P51900079704), 2 BHK and 3 BHK flats in Matunga from 804 square feet; Aakasa Shivaji Park (PR1170002501204), 3 BHK at 890 and 1,150 square feet; and Aakasa Worli (P51900050463), one of the new projects in Worli, 3, 4 and 5 BHK from 1,300 square feet. Ask our sales team for the cost sheet of any flat, and check its carpet area against the MahaRERA filing before you read anything else on it.