FlatHunt
Flat hunting in India, practically
Updated 20 September 2026
Flat hunting in an Indian metro is three separate problems that get treated as one: finding a place, affording the way in, and ending up with people you can live with. They have different answers, and most of the frustration comes from attacking them in the wrong order.
What it actually costs to move in
The rent is the number everybody compares and the smallest part of the decision. Getting into a flat usually means:
- A security deposit — two months in Bengaluru and Pune, often ten in Mumbai, negotiable almost everywhere.
- Brokerage — typically one month's rent, paid by you, for an introduction.
- An agreement, registered, with its own cost.
- Setting the room up — a bed, a cupboard, and a share of whatever the flat already owns.
Taking over a room from an outgoing tenant removes the second and third of those entirely and often the fourth as well, which is why a flat replacement is the cheapest way into a shared flat.
Where the rooms actually are
Whole flats are listed on the big portals. Rooms in shared flats mostly are not — they move through WhatsApp groups, company channels, and whoever the outgoing tenant asks first. That is the market this app exists for, and it is why a room can be filled before it is ever advertised.
Search by commute, not by locality
The most common mistake is choosing an area by reputation and discovering the commute afterwards. Eight kilometres in Bengaluru is fifteen minutes at ten at night and fifty-five at ten in the morning, and no locality name carries that information.
Pick the place you have to reach on a weekday morning, then work outwards from it in minutes. FlatHunt filters the whole city to rooms within 20, 30, 45 or 60 minutes of a point you set — see flats in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad or Delhi NCR.
How to check a place in one visit
- Water. Ask where it comes from and whether tankers are involved in summer. This decides more days than the decor does.
- Power. Whether there is backup, and whether it covers the whole flat or the corridor.
- The commute, at the real hour. A Sunday visit tells you nothing about a Tuesday.
- The flatmates, in the flat. Not on a call.
- What is included — maintenance, internet, cook, cleaner — and what each costs on top.
- The agreement. How long is left, whose names are on it, and what happens at the end of it.
If you have nobody to share with yet
Then the flat is not your first problem. Finding two or three people you can live with is, and it is the harder half — how to find flatmates covers what to agree before anybody signs anything.
Common questions
Is flat hunting cheaper without a broker?
Usually by a month's rent, which is the standard brokerage on a residential rental in an Indian metro. Taking over a room from an outgoing tenant avoids it entirely, because the introduction is between two tenants and there is no agent in the middle.
What is the best time to look for a flat in India?
Rooms in shared flats turn over continuously rather than seasonally, because they follow job changes rather than lease years. Whole flats cluster around the end of standard eleven-month agreements.
How much deposit should I expect?
Two months is typical in Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad; Mumbai can run to ten. On a replacement the deposit usually transfers from the incoming tenant to the outgoing one directly, rather than being paid fresh to the owner.
Find a room, or the person who takes yours
FlatHunt is built for exactly this handover, in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Delhi NCR, Chennai, Kolkata and Chandigarh.