Most people who look at Central Point are also looking at plots, so here is the comparison written the way we would want it written if we were buying. It includes the parts that do not favour us.
| One floor here | A plot | |
|---|---|---|
| You can live in it | On handover | After you build it |
| Further money needed to occupy | None | The entire construction cost |
| You own land | No | Yes |
| You can change the design | No | Entirely |
| Appreciation tracks | The building and the area | The land, which historically moves faster |
| Resale market | Narrower — buyers for floors are fewer | Broad and well understood |
| Bank lending | Depends on the lender | Routine |
| Neighbours sharing your structure | Two | None |
| Maintenance decisions | Shared for the common parts | Yours alone |
| Entry price on this road | From Rs. 52,50,000 | Several times that, before building |
Buy the plot, not the floor, if…
- You are buying primarily to hold and resell. Land has been the better appreciating asset in Lahore for a long time, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
- You want to build something specific — a particular layout, a particular number of rooms, a basement, a workshop.
- You have the construction budget as well as the land budget, and you have the eighteen months and the patience that building actually takes.
- The idea of sharing a structure with two other households is something you know you will resent.
Buy the floor if…
- You want to stop paying rent and start living in something of your own, this year rather than in four years.
- You have a salary that supports a monthly instalment but not a lump sum, and no realistic path to a construction budget on top of a plot price.
- You want a known, finished, fixed cost rather than a construction project whose budget you will discover as you go.
- The location matters more to you than the land. A floor on a serviced road beats a plot somewhere you would not want to commute from.
The comparison nobody makes, which is the real one
Most people choosing between these two are not really choosing between a floor and a plot. They are choosing between a floor now and a plot eventually — while paying rent in the meantime. Rent is the third column that never makes it onto the comparison table, and over the 36 months of an instalment plan it is usually the largest number on the page.
Work out your own version on the calculator: put your current rent next to the monthly instalment and see which way it falls. If the plot still wins, buy the plot. We would rather you did that than resent us in three years.