Should you buy a home?

The numbers to start with

From Should you buy a home right now? Five questions to answer before you open a single listing. Each figure is sourced or marked as an illustration there.

• ₹39.6 lakh
  Cash a ₹1 crore flat needs up front: 25% down, 7% stamp duty and six months' reserve
  Illustration
• ₹67,479
  Monthly EMI on a ₹75 lakh loan at 9% over 20 years
  Illustration
• 5 to 12 years
  How long buying took to overtake renting in the five Atlas cities, when prices rise 7% a year and a renter earns 8%
  Illustration

Read in this order

1. 1
   Recommended first read

   Should you buy a home right now? Five questions to answer before you open a single listing

   Most buyers start with listings and work backwards to a decision. Do it the other way round: five questions, each with a number you can check, tell you whether buying fits you at all. On a ₹1 crore flat, the cash alone comes to about ₹40 lakh.

   Buyer Guide · 3 min readRead this first →
2. 2

   Under-construction or ready-to-move: which actually costs less?

   Under-construction homes now carry higher average asking prices than ready ones in Delhi, Gurugram and Mumbai. But the real comparison is total cost over the same period. We modelled both, including a 12- and 24-month delay.

   Buyer Guide · 7 min read
3. 3

   Property or mutual funds? The comparison most people get wrong, worked through properly

   Most property-vs-funds comparisons pit one asset's best decade against the other's average year. We put the same ₹1.07 crore into a rental flat and a fund for 10 years, counting rent, costs and the loan. Property only wins if prices grow fast, and a loan made it worse, not better.

   Buyer Guide · 4 min read

The other decisions

• 2. Is it better to rent or buy?
• 3. How much can I afford?
• 4. Is the asking price fair?
• 5. What should I check before paying?

By city