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RentvsBuyIndia

Home Loan Affordability Calculator for India

A realistic property budget from your actual monthly surplus, not an optimistic salary multiple.

Your finances

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Car loan, personal loan, etc.

years

% p.a.

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30–85%. Under 50% is the safe zone.

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Set to compare against a specific home

Bank eligibility tells you the most they will lend; affordability is what you can repay without squeezing your life. This calculator starts from your real monthly surplus, not your salary, and works backwards to a property budget you can actually carry.

How it works

  1. Enter your income, expenses, savings, and any EMIs already running.
  2. Your monthly surplus is computed, and the share of it you choose becomes your comfortable EMI.
  3. That EMI is converted into a maximum loan and, with your down payment, the property price you can afford.

Before you start

  • EMI share: banks may allow around 50% of your surplus, but a lower share keeps room for emergencies.
  • Current EMIs: include every running loan; each one directly cuts the home loan you can carry.
  • Target property: add one to get a stretch check against what you can actually afford.

You'll get

  • The property price you can afford, with the loan and EMI behind it
  • A monthly money map of where your income goes
  • A stretch check against your target property, if you set one
  • Numbers you can rerun instantly as circumstances change

A worked example

Meera is a software engineer in Bengaluru taking home ₹1,50,000 a month. Her expenses run to ₹60,000, she puts ₹20,000 into committed savings, and a car loan takes another ₹10,000. Her real monthly surplus is therefore ₹60,000, not the ₹1.5 lakh her payslip suggests.

Keeping the new EMI at 50% of that surplus gives a comfortable ₹30,000 a month. At 8.5% over 20 years, ₹30,000 a month services a loan of about ₹34.6 lakh. Add her ₹15 lakh down payment, and her realistic property budget is roughly ₹49.6 lakh, with ₹30,000 of surplus still free every month for emergencies, investing, and life.

Now suppose the flat Meera actually likes costs ₹60 lakh. The target-property check runs the same maths in reverse: her ₹15 lakh down payment clears the 20% minimum (₹12 lakh), leaving a ₹45 lakh loan that needs about ₹39,000 a month, some ₹9,000 beyond her comfortable EMI. That gap is the honest cost of the stretch: she can close it with a larger down payment, a cheaper home, or a deliberate decision to run a thinner monthly margin.

Two things are worth noticing. The salary headline had little to do with the final budget; the surplus did all the work. And the ₹10,000 car EMI didn't just cost ₹10,000 a month; at her chosen EMI share it removed nearly ₹6 lakh of home loan capacity. Every running loan shrinks the house you can buy.

What this calculator deliberately leaves out

Several things could make the picture look rosier, and all of them are left out on purpose:

  • Tax benefits: home loan deductions can lower the effective cost, but they depend on your tax regime and shouldn't prop up a stretched budget.
  • Property appreciation: what the home may be worth later doesn't help you pay this month's EMI.
  • Future income growth: raises are likely but not guaranteed; a loan that needs them to work is a risk, not a plan.
  • Prepayments: a welcome accelerator once you have the loan, not a reason to take a bigger one.

The result is a conservative number by design. If the budget works without the optimistic assumptions, everything they add later is upside. It is also why the figure here can sit below a bank's eligibility number: the bank is answering how much it can safely lend; this page answers how much you can comfortably live with.

What to do with your number

Once you have a budget you trust, put it to work: run the loan through the EMI Calculator to see the full amortisation schedule and total interest cost; test the decision itself with the Rent vs Buy Calculator, which compares buying at your budget against renting the same home and investing the difference; and if staying on rent is a live option, size it honestly with the True Rental Expense Calculator.

Affordability questions, answered

How much home loan can I get on my salary in India?

Banks typically allow total EMIs of 40–50% of your net monthly income. On a ₹1 lakh salary with no other EMIs, that is roughly a ₹50–60 lakh loan over 20 years at current rates. This calculator works from your actual disposable income for a more realistic figure.

What percentage of income should my EMI be?

Keeping EMIs within 40–50% of disposable income is generally considered safe. Above 50% is moderate risk, and above 60% is high risk: one salary disruption away from stress. The calculator flags your chosen level.

How much down payment do I need to buy a house?

RBI caps home loans at 80% of property value for most price bands, so plan for at least 20% as down payment, plus 7–12% more for registration, stamp duty and interiors that loans do not cover.

Should I stretch my budget to buy a bigger house?

Compare first: if rents in your area are low relative to prices, renting the bigger house and investing the difference can build more wealth. Run the numbers in our Rent vs Buy Calculator before stretching.

Why work out affordability before visiting properties?

Because aspiration inflates fast once you start seeing homes. A budget anchored in your actual surplus keeps the search honest, filters listings before you fall for them, and spares you the heartbreak of a loan rejection after an advance is paid.

Why does the calculator subtract savings and existing EMIs?

Money already committed is not disposable. Your SIPs, insurance premiums and running EMIs will not pause for a home loan, so counting them as available income overstates what you can repay. Banks apply the same logic through their fixed-obligation-to-income ratios.

What if I want to exceed the recommended EMI share?

The slider goes up to 85%, and the risk flag tells you plainly what you are taking on: above 50% of surplus is moderate risk, and above 60% is high risk, one salary disruption from real stress. Stretching can be a conscious choice; it should never be an accidental one.

How often should I redo this calculation?

Whenever income, expenses, EMIs, or interest rates change meaningfully, and always before a serious property shortlist. It takes under a minute, and an out-of-date budget is worse than none.

How do interest-rate changes affect what I can afford?

Meaningfully: at a 20-year tenure, each 0.5% rate move shifts the loan a given EMI can service by roughly 4–5%. Rerun the calculation at today’s rate plus and minus half a percent to see your range before committing.

Does a bigger down payment change the answer?

Directly: every extra rupee of down payment raises your property budget without adding EMI burden. Lenders also tend to price loans slightly better at lower loan-to-value ratios. Just avoid emptying the emergency fund to get there.

Found your budget? Check the monthly cost with the EMI Calculator and whether buying beats renting with the Rent vs Buy Calculator.