How much home loan can I get on my salary?

Two separate ceilings decide it and the lower one is your answer. Your income fixes the largest EMI a lender will grant, and so the largest loan. Your savings fix the largest property your deposit and stamp duty can cover. On a ₹1,00,000 take-home with ₹20,00,000 saved, income is usually the one that binds.

There are two ceilings, not one

Most answers to this question give a single rule — sixty times your monthly salary, or an EMI of 40–50% of income. That describes only one of the two limits, and it is not always the one that stops you.

The first ceiling is income. A lender caps total EMIs at a share of net monthly pay, and that cap covers every EMI you already have, not just the new one. Whatever room is left is what your loan has to fit inside. The second ceiling is your deposit: a lender funds only part of the price, so the rest, plus stamp duty and registration, comes out of your savings. That caps the price whatever you earn.

Your budget is the lower of the two. Which one it is matters more than the number itself, because it tells you what would actually change it — and the two respond to completely different things.

A worked example

Take a ₹1,00,000 monthly take-home, ₹20,00,000 saved, no existing EMIs, and a loan quoted at 8.5% over 20 years. Assume the lender allows total EMIs up to 50% of net income, funds 80% of the price, and that stamp duty and other purchase costs come to 7%.

The income ceiling: 50% of ₹1,00,000 is ₹50,000 of EMI room, which services a loan of about ₹57,61,542 at those terms, supporting a property of roughly ₹72,01,928. The deposit ceiling: ₹20,00,000 divided across a 20% deposit plus 7% costs supports about ₹74,07,407.

So the answer is ₹72,01,928 and income is the binding constraint — but only just, by about ₹2 lakh. At that price the loan is ₹57,61,542, the deposit ₹14,40,386, purchase costs ₹5,04,135, and the cash needed on the day ₹19,44,521. Over the full 20 years, if never prepaid, the interest comes to ₹62,38,458.

budget = min(income ceiling ₹72,01,928, deposit ceiling ₹74,07,407)

What an existing EMI costs you

Keep everything above the same and add a ₹15,000 car EMI. The lender's allowance does not rise to accommodate it — it comes out of the same 50%, leaving ₹35,000 of room instead of ₹50,000.

The budget falls from ₹72,01,928 to ₹50,41,349. A ₹15,000 monthly commitment has removed about ₹21,60,000 of property. That ratio surprises people, and it is the single most useful thing to know before taking on any other loan in the couple of years before buying: the cost is not the EMI, it is roughly a hundred and forty times the EMI in purchasing power.

₹15,000 of existing EMI ≈ ₹21,60,579 less property

Why a longer tenure can buy less than you expect

Stretching the same example from 20 years to 30 lifts the income ceiling to about ₹81,28,353, because the same ₹50,000 services a larger loan over more months. But the deposit ceiling has not moved — it is still ₹74,07,407 — so that becomes the binding one and the budget lands there.

The extra ten years bought ₹2,05,479 more property. Over the life of the loan it costs ₹1,04,77,474 in interest instead of ₹62,38,458 — about ₹42,39,000 more. Whether that trade is worth making is a decision about your own circumstances, but it is worth seeing the two numbers side by side first, and worth noticing that most of the extra borrowing power was unusable because the deposit ran out before the income did.

The cash you need is more than the deposit

A 20% deposit on a ₹72,01,928 property is ₹14,40,386, but the cash actually required is ₹19,44,521 — stamp duty, registration and associated costs add ₹5,04,135 that never reaches the seller and cannot be borrowed against the property.

Budgeting the deposit alone is the commonest way buyers come up short at registration. Rates for stamp duty and registration vary by state and sometimes by the buyer, so use your own state's figures rather than the 7% used here.

What changes the answer

The income share a lender allows and the share of the price it funds are lending conventions, not fixed law — they vary by lender, by property, by your profile and over time. Both are inputs you can change in the calculator above, and neither is a figure this site asserts on your behalf.

This arithmetic covers sizing only. It says nothing about whether a purchase is a good idea, assumes no property appreciation of any kind, and excludes maintenance, property tax, insurance and the cost of the deposit no longer being available for anything else. It also assumes a single borrower — a co-applicant's income changes the first ceiling substantially.