In a new book, journalist Samanth Subramanian probes the real estate business in and around Delhi

In Noida, real-estate middlemen cluster like lemmings in a building called Chokhani Square and in a couple of adjacent buildings, next to the Sector 18 Metro station. From here, Vikas Singh, a 25-year-old salesman who works for a firm named Property Guru, took me on his motorcycle to Sector 75 to examine the site of Gardenia Golf City. In five years, Vikas had completed a three-year bachelor’s degree in chemistry in his hometown of Patna. (“In Bihar, things always run late,” he explained, grinning.) Then he obtained an MBA in Allahabad before coming to Delhi and joining Property Guru. Like the other young realtors I met, he was almost painfully polite – a deep disconnect with the intrusive, bullying text messages that led me to them.

On either side of the access road to Golf City lay more upcoming developments – Supertech Cape Town and Supertech North Eye – and the dust raised by construction was so thick that we both started to gasp and cough as we rode through it. Work on Golf City had barely begun, so Vikas parked his motorcycle outside a Gardenia office and we went in to see a sample unit. When we returned, just 10 minutes...

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