Society & Project Comparison Sheet (Excel)

Buyers spend an hour inspecting the flat and four minutes noticing the building. Then they live in the building for a decade.

This scores up to four societies against the twelve things that actually determine daily life there — water hours, power backup, the sinking fund, lift servicing, seepage, parking, governance — and puts them side by side.

For an agent, filling it in before you show anything is what lets you answer questions instead of saying you will check. Buyers who have been through three site visits with three agents notice immediately when one of them knows the building.

What is in the file

• Twelve scored criteria across four societies, with a weighted total
• The specific question to ask for each one — and who to ask, which is usually a resident rather than the secretary
• A Costs block: maintenance per month, sinking fund status, and any approved-but-uncollected special assessment
• A red-flag row for the things that should stop a purchase outright

Ask residents, not the secretary

Ten minutes talking to someone in the lift or at the gate produces more honest information than any document. One question does most of the work:

"If you were buying here again, would you?"

The pause before the answer is the information.

The sinking fund question

Ask whether one exists and roughly how large. A society with lifts due for replacement and no reserve will fund that through a sudden special assessment on every owner — including your buyer, weeks after they move in.

It is the single most predictive question about future unexpected costs and almost no buyer asks it.

Go back at the right time

Noise, parking and water pressure at 8pm on a weekday are different from 11am on a Sunday. So is the mobile signal inside the flat. Some of this can only be learned by standing there.

Questions

This is a working template, not legal, tax or financial advice. Requirements differ by state and by transaction — have a lawyer and a chartered accountant confirm anything that matters before you or a client rely on it.