June 15, 2025: Even Maharashtra’s wealthiest urban families are finding home ownership in Mumbai to be an increasingly unattainable goal. New data suggests that the top 5% of earners in the state would need to save for 109 years to purchase an average-sized home in the city, making Mumbai the least affordable property market among 21 Indian capitals.
According to a report based on National Housing Board (NHB) data and urban income estimates, the analysis compares the cost of a standard 1,184 sq ft property against the annual savings of top earners. In Maharashtra, households in the top 5% income bracket earn around Rs 10.7 lakh per annum. With a national average savings rate of 30.2%, this amounts to just Rs 3.2 lakh saved annually—while the average property cost in Mumbai exceeds Rs 3.5 crore, based on March 2025 rates of Rs 29,911 per sq ft.
The affordability gap is significant in other cities as well. In Gurgaon, a top earner would need 64 years to afford a home of the same size; in Bhubaneswar, over 50 years; and in Bengaluru and Delhi, 36 and 35 years respectively. Chandigarh stands out as the most affordable, with just 15 years of savings required.
Financial analyst Akshat Shrivastava highlights that this growing crisis in affordability is unlikely to ease. “India has a quarter of the land the US has, but four times the population,” he said, describing this mismatch as a “factor of 16” in pressure. Despite global economic shocks like the 2008 recession and demonetisation in 2016, property prices in India have soared—some by over 200–300%.
Shrivastava attributes this resilience to developers’ pricing strategies, noting they often delay projects or seek private equity rather than lower prices. In India’s metros, home ownership remains a luxury, not a certainty—even for the affluent.
Source: Money Today
