PAN card fundaes

PAN (Permanent Account Number) is a mandatory requirement for many financial transactions. I did not have a PAN card when I moved and this resulted in a few inconveniences. To open a bank account, one has to submit the PAN. The employer who pays you taxable salary needs the PAN. If a PAN is not provided, there might be a penalty where the TDS (Tax Deducted at Source) is calculated at a higher rate than normal.

NRIs can apply for a PAN and I highly recommend getting this done before you move. You can apply for and check the status of the application online at https://tin.tin.nsdl.com/pan/index.html.

It is said that the typical time to process the application is 2 weeks. I have not yet received my PAN card (it has only been a week) and I will update the blog once I have it.

Finding a rental apartment

Finding a rental apartment has been an interesting experience so far. We are interested in three parameters (a) location (b) amenities (c) value for money.

Location encompasses a couple of different aspects - but the most important aspect for us is distance to workplace. Bangalore's traffic situation deserves a separate post - but I can summarize it by saying if you want to go 10 km, better plan for an hour or more during peak hours (which I haven't determined accurately yet).

Amenities - there are apartment complexes with lots of fancy amenities including swimming pool, landscaped areas, bowling alleys and so on. These are typically self-contained big complexes with 1000-2000 apartments that are along the edge of the city. Current rent for a 3 BHK (Bedroom-Hall-Kitchen) in such places is 25-30K. The places that you'll find closer to the center of the city e.g. Ulsoor, Indira Nagar etc have few amenities - sometimes they do not even have a power backup. However, their rents tend to be way higher because of location.

The general procedure is to find a broker (they prefer to be called real-estate agents now) who will show you properties based on your requirements. The agent gets one month rent as his commission, should you end up finalizing something that he/she shows you. Ask around in your social circle for contacts - it is always good to go by reference. Talk to multiple agents in parallel. We would see 4-5 apartments over 3 hours. Check out apartments during daytime - everything looks good at night :) You will occasionally find ads in the newspaper or in craigslist (yep - there's a bangalore section), but they are few and far between. Finally, good apartments aren't available for very long - so if you like something, try to finalize it quickly.

In Bangalore

Quick update from me. I've now physically moved to Bangalore. Still figuring out some of the basic stuff. I'm going to write up small posts which mostly describe my immediate reactions/observations. I reserve the right to change my opinion over time :)

Transferring money to India

At the time of writing this post, one of the best ways that we've found to transfer money is via State Bank of India in San Jose. They offer much better exchange rates than some of the other services and money transfer takes a single day. You'll need to carry a cashier's check for the amount you wish to transfer. It might be worthwhile chatting with the manager to get a better exchange rate. We had bad experience with Remit2India - they messed up account verification and couldn't help me out despite repeated requests.

Craigslist

Craigslist (www.craigslist.org) is your friend if you want to get rid of old stuff before your move. Managed to sell my wife's car within 6 hours of posting the ad. My wife and I were totally unprepared to lose the car in such a short span of time. We also sold our old TV, stand, some old handycams. One thing my wife and I disagree about is selling low-value items. In my opinion, you have to treat your time as money. If you end up spending your evening waiting for someone to come by and pick up a $20 item, then its probably not worth it. We have few evenings left in the US. If it is a $1000 item, then I'm all for it. I don't know what the exact value of my evening is - but its probably somewhere over $50 :) My wife thinks I'm a fool and we should sell everything we possibly can.

Credit Cards and Airline Miles

I cancelled quite a few unnecessary credit cards - easy enough to do on the phone. Takes about 5 minutes per card. I also had a credit union account from a long time ago that I closed out over the phone. They'll mail me a check with the balance that I hope to put into my regular checking account with a big bank. I guess I'm going against the trend right now with the 'Occupy Wall St' movements :)

Also spent a few minutes trying to redeem credit card points and airline miles. Credit card turned out to be easy since it had a cash-back option. Airline miles were a pain - many programs don't seem to have a gift card option and take up to 8 weeks to deliver merchandise. That's too late for me. Thankfully, didn't have a whole lot of them left.

Vacation

Took a small vacation during all the R2I madness. Went to Cancun for 10 days. Highly recommend it. I think it was a good break from all the intense planning and discussions. Now back to R2I. My wife's employer is taking care of relocation and we're waiting for movers to do a survey and come up with a plan. Also need to book air tickets!