What a home actually costs beyond the loan

Ask most home affordability calculators "how much home can I afford" and you'll get a single number: a home price, derived from your income and a down payment. Buy at that price, and the very first thing that happens is you discover the price on the listing was never the price of buying the home — it was the price of the loan and the down payment alone. Everything else due at (or before) registration comes out of the same pocket, usually all at once, and none of it is optional.

The single biggest piece is stamp duty — a state government tax on the transfer of property, paid to make the sale deed legally valid. Rates are set state by state (property is a state subject under India's constitution), which is why they vary so much: Karnataka charges roughly 5% of the property's value, Maharashtra and Delhi around 6%, Tamil Nadu around 7%, Kerala around 8%. On top of stamp duty, registration fees — the charge for actually recording the transfer with the sub-registrar — typically add another 0.5-4% depending on the state; Karnataka's is 2%, after the state government doubled it from 1% in August 2025, the first change to that fee since 2003. Neither is financed by your home loan; both are usually due in cash at registration, in addition to your down payment.

If you're buying an under-construction property rather than a ready-to-move-in one, add GST. As of this writing, GST on under-construction residential property is 1% (without input tax credit) for units that qualify as "affordable housing" — carpet area up to 60 sq. m. in metros or 90 sq. m. elsewhere, priced at ₹45 lakh or less — and 5% (also without input tax credit) for everything above that. A flat with a completed occupancy certificate, bought ready to move into, is exempt from GST entirely — one of the more significant, and least advertised, reasons a ready-to-move-in home can work out meaningfully cheaper than an identically priced under-construction one. GST rates and thresholds are set by the GST Council and do change; confirm the current rate before relying on this for a real purchase.

Then there's brokerage, if you used an agent to find the property — commonly 1-2% of the transaction value in most Indian cities, negotiable, and customarily paid by the buyer, the seller, or split between both depending on local practice. Home insurance is comparatively small (often a few thousand rupees a year for a standard structure policy) but still a real, recurring line item most first-time buyers forget to budget for until the lender asks for proof of one, since most home loans require it as a condition of the loan.

Furnishing and interiors are a different kind of cost — not a government levy or a closing formality, but real money you'll spend before the home is actually livable: modular kitchens, wardrobes, lights, basic appliances, sometimes flooring. There's no fixed percentage here — it depends entirely on how much of the flat is left bare by the builder and how much you want to spend — but it's routinely the single largest "forgotten" cost in a home purchase, because it doesn't appear on the property's sale agreement at all. A sensible contingency allowance, sized to your own plans rather than a generic rule of thumb, belongs in your cash-available number from day one, not as an afterthought once the keys are in hand.

None of this is one-time. Once you own the home, monthly maintenance or society charges (commonly billed per square foot, or as a flat monthly amount by the resident welfare association) and annual property tax (set and collected by the local municipal body — BBMP in Bengaluru, for instance — usually based on the property's built-up area, location, and usage) continue for as long as you own the place. They don't affect what you need in cash to buy, but they do affect what you can actually afford to hold onto afterward, alongside your EMI.

Here's what that adds up to for an ₹80 lakh flat in Bengaluru, at Karnataka's typical rates, comparing a ready-to-move-in purchase against an otherwise identical under-construction one:

The gap between "ready to move in" and "under construction" here is entirely GST — nothing else in the stack changes. That's a meaningfully different total to plan cash for, and it's exactly the kind of thing a bare "home price" figure hides.

This is precisely the gap the Home Affordability Calculator is built to close. Most calculators — including the naive version of this one — will tell you "the loan you can service": how much home price your EMI-to-income ratio and down payment support, full stop. The honest number subtracts stamp duty, registration, and a furnishing/contingency allowance from your available cash before any of it becomes down payment, so the price it lands on is one you can actually complete the purchase of, not just one your bank would approve a loan for.

Last reviewed 2026-07-24. Educational content, not financial advice — Educational tools, not investment advice.