What this page will and will not tell you
It will tell you, in rupees, what buying costs and returns on the numbers you enter — including the ₹5 lakh-odd of state charges and loan interest that a headline “property appreciates X%” argument never counts. It will also tell you the break-even annual return: what the alternative would have had to earn, every year, to end up level.
It will not tell you what any investment returns, has returned, or will return. RealCostIQ models property costs; it does not model, rate or recommend investments, and no figure on this page is a return we are claiming for anything. If you need somewhere to live, the comparison is secondary to that anyway — a house you live in pays a dividend in shelter that no spreadsheet prices.
The cost of entry, by state, on a ₹80 L purchase
State charges on a purchase with 20% down, for a male sole owner. None of it is funded by the home loan, and none of it comes back when you sell — which is why a short hold rarely wins this comparison whatever the appreciation rate does.
Telanganastamp duty + registration ₹3,60,000 · cash on day one ₹19,60,000
Gujaratstamp duty + registration ₹4,72,000 · cash on day one ₹20,72,000
Maharashtrastamp duty + registration ₹5,10,000 · cash on day one ₹21,10,000
Delhistamp duty + registration ₹5,60,000 · cash on day one ₹21,60,000
Karnatakastamp duty + registration ₹6,08,000 · cash on day one ₹22,08,000
Tamil Nadustamp duty + registration ₹8,80,000 · cash on day one ₹24,80,000
From this site’s per-state stamp duty engine, where each rate names the state registry or government portal that publishes it and the date it was checked. Each state’s municipal layer, value bands and registration ceiling are applied rather than averaged. Compare all nine states side by side.
Whose name the flat is in changes the entry cost, and then it compounds
On the same ₹80 L Delhi purchase with 20% down, a male sole owner needs ₹21,60,000 on day one — ₹4,80,000 of stamp duty at 6% plus ₹80,000 of registration — while a female sole owner needs ₹20,00,000, because Delhi charges her 4%. That is ₹1,60,000 of difference before anything else has happened, and on the comparison side of this calculation it compounds for the whole holding period. It is also a decision about who owns the asset, with consequences for succession, for who claims the home-loan interest deduction, and for capital gains on the sale — not a rate you pick.
Which numbers are ours, and which are yours
Supplied by RealCostIQ, each read to a primary source
- Stamp duty and registration — per state, per registered owner, from this site’s own engine, each rate cited to the state registry or government portal with the date checked.
- SBI External Benchmark based Lending Rate (EBLR) — 7.90%. State Bank of India — External Benchmark based Lending Rate, 7.90% with effect from 15 December 2025 (linked to the RBI policy repo rate, 5.25%). SBI's home loan page separately quotes 7.25% p.a. "onwards" with effect from 1 April 2026, which is a best-case floor rather than a quoted rate. Source: sbi.co.in/web/interest-rates/interest-rates, checked 2026-08-31. A starting point, not your rate. A sanctioned home loan is the external benchmark plus a spread set on your credit profile, loan-to-value and employment, and the rate floats with the repo rate over the life of the loan. Replace it with the rate on your own sanction letter.
- RBI House Price Index — all-India annual growth — 3.60%. Reserve Bank of India — House Price Index, all-India annual growth of 3.6% in Q1:2026-27 (April–June 2026), base year 2022-23, compiled from registration authority transaction data for 18 cities. Released 24 August 2026. Source: rbi.org.in, checked 2026-08-31. A national average across 18 cities over one quarter, annualised. It is not a forecast, it is not your city, and it is not your project — the RBI release names which cities mainly contributed to the quarter's growth but publishes no per-city percentage, so no city figure is offered here. Past index growth is not a prediction of what your flat will do over ten years.
Asked of you, with no default, because no Indian source publishes them
- Gross rental yield — No Indian primary source publishes it. NHB RESIDEX, the obvious candidate, publishes a housing PRICE index and no rental data at all — checked 2026-08-31. The per-city yield figures in circulation trace to a 2024 CREDAI-MCHI / CRE Matrix report reaching the public through a newspaper summary rather than through a CREDAI document, and they are two years old. A number that specific, presented as ours, would be a guess wearing a citation. Take the monthly rent that comparable flats in the same project or street are actually let at, multiply by twelve, and divide by the price you are paying. Ask two brokers and a resident, not a portal listing — asking rents are advertised, achieved rents are not.
- Annual maintenance and society charges — There is no published India benchmark. Maintenance is set by the housing society or the builder's facility company per square foot of built-up area, varies several-fold between a walk-up and a tower with a clubhouse, and no government or industry body compiles it. Ask the society or the builder for the current per-square-foot monthly charge and multiply it out, then add municipal property tax, building insurance and a realistic repairs allowance. The maintenance bill on a new tower typically rises once the builder hands the society over.
- Cost of selling — Brokerage on a resale is customary rather than statutory — commonly quoted at 1–2% of the sale price, sometimes split between the parties — and no authority publishes it. Legal and society transfer charges on the way out are quoted per transaction, not as a rate. Ask what brokers in your market actually charge a seller, and add anything your society charges on a transfer. If you intend to sell privately, enter the lower figure and keep the legal cost in mind separately.
- Benchmark return you are comparing against — This is your assumption, not ours, and RealCostIQ does not model or recommend any investment product. The comparison below is arithmetic: it takes the same money on the same dates and compounds it at whatever annual rate you type in, so you can see what the property would have to beat. Nothing on this page is investment advice, and no return is suggested, endorsed or implied. Use whatever rate you would genuinely expect from the alternative you have in mind, before tax and before charges, and try it again a few points lower. The gap between the two answers usually matters more than either one.
Why the break-even rate is the number to read
Whatever return rate you type into the last field, the answer it produces is only as good as that guess. The break-even rate is not: it is computed from the property’s own cash flows and says what the alternative would have had to earn, every year of your holding period, on the same money on the same dates, to finish level.
That turns an argument into a question you can actually answer. If the break-even comes out at 4% you are being asked whether you can beat a fixed deposit; if it comes out at 14% you are being asked whether you can beat something considerably harder. Either way the number is a fact about the flat, not a claim about anything else — and RealCostIQ makes no claim about anything else.
What this does not model
- Income tax. Rent is taxable in your hands, home loan interest and principal carry deductions under sections 24(b) and 80C, and long-term capital gains on the sale have their own regime with indexation rules that have changed recently. None of it is modelled and all of it moves the answer.
- Rent growth and vacancy. The rent you enter is held flat for the whole period and assumed to be received every month. Real tenancies have gaps, and rents move.
- Interest-rate movement. The loan rate you enter is held flat. A floating home loan tracks the repo rate for twenty years and will not stay where it started.
- GST on an under-construction purchase, and TDS under section 194-IA above ₹50,00,000 — both are priced by their own calculators on this site.
- Anything about your circumstances: whether you would otherwise be paying rent, job mobility, the value of living in a place you own, or the risk that a project is not delivered. A spreadsheet cannot price those and this one does not try.
Disclaimer: a cost model, not financial advice. RealCostIQ does not model, rate or recommend any investment, and no return figure on this page is one we are claiming for anything — the comparison rate is the one you entered. Property outcomes depend on the specific project, locality and transaction. Speak to a SEBI-registered investment adviser about investments and to a chartered accountant about the tax treatment of either side.
By RealCost Editorial TeamReviewed by RealCost Editorial TeamLast updated September 21, 2026 with September 2026 data
The calculator above prices what buying takes out of your pocket, but it stops at the sale — it does not model exit tax, and neither does this article invent a return assumption to fill that gap. What is sourced: a property sold after a 24-month holding counts as a long-term capital asset, and since 23 July 2024 the gain is taxed at 12.5% without indexation — a real cost that lands after the break-even rate this calculator computes, and the loan-interest deduction that many buy-vs-invest arguments assume is not available at all under the tax regime that now applies by default.
Methodology
Capital-gains figures are read from an official CBDT/PIB FAQ dated the day after the reformed rate took effect; income-tax figures from the Income Tax Department's AY 2026-27 e-filing portal; loan-rate mechanics from RBI's own press releases. None of this article's figures are converted from a non-Indian source or derived from a national average.
Want to try different numbers?
Back to the calculator ↑