NRIWallah team
Updated
September 2026
· 3 min read
Calculators built for residents in India compare a monthly EMI with a monthly rent. For an NRI that leaves out the most important part: the money you would otherwise keep invested abroad, in a currency that has gained on the rupee for decades.
What resident calculators miss
If a portfolio returned 7% a year in dollars (it is not guaranteed and can fall), while the rupee falls 3.5% a year against the dollar, grows by about 10.7% a year measured in rupees, the currency the flat is priced in. So the question is not EMI against rent. It is whether an Indian flat, after stamp duty, agent fees, vacant months, TDS on rent and capital gains tax on sale, can beat an investment growing at about 10% a year in rupee terms.
A break-even rate, not a verdict
The calculator gives one figure: the annual price growth at which buying and not buying come out level.
On a typical Bangalore purchase, ₹1.4 crore with a 25% deposit, an 8.75% loan, let out and held for ten years, compared with an index fund abroad, the break-even is about 9.5% a year, every year for a decade.
You can judge that against history. The RBI’s house price index rose 3.58% in the year to December 2025, and averaged 3.7% a year over 2017–2020. It grew by roughly 10% a year over the decade to 2020-21, so 9.5% is possible, but it needs the 2010s to repeat rather than recent years to continue.
Costs that fall harder on non-residents
- Stamp duty, from about 5.9% in Ahmedabad to roughly 11% in Chennai, is paid on day one, so the flat has to rise several percent before you are level.
- Rent is taxed at source at 30%, plus surcharge and cess, on the gross rent, with no threshold; the ₹50,000-a-month threshold applies only to resident landlords. Most of it comes back when you file, but not until then. The rent TDS calculator shows the gap.
- Interest relief can be lost. Under the new tax regime, a loss from house property cannot be set against other income, so on a heavily mortgaged flat much of the interest relief goes unused.
- No indexation on sale. Since July 2024, residents who bought before the change can choose 20% with indexation or 12.5% without. Non-residents pay 12.5% on the whole nominal gain, plus surcharge and cess. The buyer must also withhold TDS; the property sale TDS calculator works it through, and a lower deduction certificate obtained beforehand stops far more being withheld than you owe.
Using the calculator
Enter your own city, price and view of the rupee, and compare the flat with the alternative you would actually use: an index fund, an NRE deposit or Indian shares. The benchmark changes the hurdle a great deal. If you would borrow, the home loan EMI comparator compares an Indian loan with one where you live.
The calculator cannot price somewhere for your parents to live, a base to return to, or what owning a home where you grew up means to you. Buying for those reasons is a reasonable choice, as long as you know it is not an investment decision. It also assumes an orderly purchase and sale: no builder delay, title dispute or forced sale into a slow market. Check any project on the RERA register before you commit.
