Zenith Wealth

What house does your income actually support?

A lender will tell you the largest loan they are willing to approve. That is a statement about their risk, not about your life. This shows that number alongside the one that still leaves you able to save.

Reviewed 20 August 2026

What leaves room to save
₹71,42,857
on an instalment of ₹60,000
What a lender would approve
₹71,42,857
on an instalment of ₹75,000

Your deposit is the constraint rather than your income. ₹20,00,000 covers the 28% of cash a purchase actually needs on a property of about ₹71.43 L, which is below what your income would support.

A lender’s ceiling is the point at which they start to worry about being repaid. It is not the point at which the borrowing starts to hurt, and the two are usually a long way apart.

Your position

What actually reaches your account, household total

The number a lender's calculation ignores entirely

Deposit plus stamp duty and registration, about 28% of the price

Where the money goes each month

ItemAmount
Net income₹1,50,000
Living expenses(₹60,000)
Continued investing(₹30,000)
Left for a home loan₹60,000
As a share of income40%

A loan of ₹69.14 L at 8.5% over 20 years costs ₹74.86 L in interest, which is more than the amount borrowed. That is the real price of the house, and it is not in the sticker.

The lender figure uses a common underwriting rule of thumb, total instalments below about 50% of net income, with the loan capped at 80% of the property value. Individual lenders apply their own policies, credit assessment and income multiples, so treat it as an indication rather than an offer.

How this is calculated

The lender figure uses the common underwriting rule that total instalments across all your loans should stay below about half of net monthly income, with the loan itself capped at 80% of the property value. That instalment is then inverted through the EMI formula to give the loan, and the loan grossed up to a price.

The comfortable figure starts from what is actually left: net income, less living expenses, less any existing instalments, less the amount you intend to keep investing. Whatever remains is what a home loan can have.

Both are then capped by your cash, because a purchase needs about 28% up front: the 20% a lender will not fund plus roughly 8% of stamp duty and registration. Where that cash is the binding constraint the page says so, since it changes what you should do next.

What this cannot tell you

The lender rule is a rule of thumb, not an offer. Individual lenders apply their own income multiples, credit assessment, age limits and policies on variable pay. The figure here indicates the shape of what is available rather than what you will be sanctioned.

It assumes your income and expenses hold steady. Both move, and the instalment does not, which is the asymmetry that makes a marginal purchase uncomfortable in a bad year.

It does not model the tax deduction on home loan interest, worth up to ₹2 lakh a year under the old regime, which effectively raises what you can afford for a borrower in that regime.

It also ignores the costs of the first year of ownership: furnishing, repairs and the society charges that begin immediately. Budgeting to the last rupee of the comfortable figure is still tighter than it looks.

How much home loan can I get on my salary?

Most lenders work to total instalments below roughly half of net monthly income, and cap the loan at 80% of the property value. On ₹1.5 lakh of net income with no existing loans, that points to an instalment of about ₹75,000 and a loan in the region of ₹87 lakh over twenty years at 8.5%.

Whether you should borrow that is a different question, and it is the one this page exists to ask. The same income leaves a much smaller instalment once living costs and continued saving are accounted for.

Why is the comfortable figure so much lower?

Because a lender’s calculation contains no line for saving. Their question is whether you can repay, and someone who services the loan and invests nothing for twenty years has answered it perfectly well from their point of view. Your question is whether you can repay andstill fund retirement, a child’s education and an emergency reserve. Nobody in the transaction is paid to ask that on your behalf.

What share of income should a home loan instalment be?

A common guideline is to keep a home loan instalment below about 35% of net income and all instalments together below 40% to 45%. Those are more conservative than most lenders will allow. The better test is the one on this page: what is left after the instalment, and is it enough to keep the rest of the plan running.

Does a longer tenure let me afford more?

It lowers the instalment, so on a lender’s arithmetic it lets you borrow more, and it makes the loan considerably more expensive. ₹50 lakh at 8.5% costs ₹43,391 a month over twenty years and ₹38,446 over thirty, but the interest bill rises from ₹54.14 lakh to ₹88.40 lakh. Stretching the tenure to reach a bigger house is the most expensive decision available in this process, and it is the one lenders suggest most readily.

Is the deposit or the income usually the constraint?

For first-time buyers it is almost always the cash, and the page tells you which one binds for you. Because a purchase needs about 28% up front and none of it can be borrowed, an income that supports a ₹1 crore purchase is irrelevant if you have ₹15 lakh saved. Knowing which constraint is active decides whether the next year is about saving harder or about looking at different properties.

Should I count my spouse's income?

Lenders will, as a joint application, and it is worth thinking about separately. Two incomes supporting one instalment is genuinely safer than one, and it also means the household has committed both incomes to a fixed monthly obligation for twenty years. If one of you might take a career break, model the instalment against the income that would remain.

What about the first year of ownership?

It costs more than anyone budgets for. Beyond the deposit and the duty there is furnishing, repairs, the society’s charges from day one, and whatever the previous owner left. A working rule is to keep three to six months of the new instalment aside on top of everything else, so the first year does not run on a credit card. That reserve should come out of the deposit figure, not out of optimism.

Should I buy at the top of what I can afford?

The honest case against it is that the instalment is fixed for twenty years while your income is not, and that a house bought at the limit leaves nothing for the years when something goes wrong. The honest case for it is that a home is not only an investment, and that property in the location you want may not become cheaper. This page cannot settle that. What it can do is make sure the trade is one you chose rather than one a sanction letter chose for you.

Questions people ask about this

Lenders generally work to total instalments below about half of net income, which points to roughly ₹75,000 and a loan near ₹87 lakh over twenty years at 8.5%. What leaves room to keep saving is usually a good deal less.

Related calculators

Talk to the desk

The number a lender gives you is about their risk, not your life.

What is left after the instalment decides whether the rest of the plan survives, and no one in the transaction is paid to work that out for you. Bring your income and what you are looking at, and we will.

Talk to a human
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