At 69 per cent of income per EMI, MMR stays India's least affordable housing market

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region remains the country's least affordable residential market, with a typical homebuyer needing about 69 per cent of household income to service a home loan EMI, according to Knight Frank India's Affordability Index for the first half of 2026. The ratio is unchanged from 2025 — and MMR and the NCR (at 67 per cent) are the only two of the eight tracked cities above the 50 per cent threshold that lenders generally treat as the limit of comfortable underwriting.

The broader national picture is steadier. Six of eight cities — including Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata and table-topping Ahmedabad — sit below the 50 per cent line, helped by the Reserve Bank's cumulative 125 basis points of easing, which offset rising prices. MMR itself has improved meaningfully over a decade, from 77 per cent in 2016, but remains the costliest market by a wide margin.

For the MMR, affordability is the constraint that shapes everything else: it pushes new supply towards Navi Mumbai, Thane and the extended suburbs, keeps compact formats in favour, and makes the region's demand the most sensitive in the country to any turn in interest rates — a live question after June's firmer inflation print.

Knight Frank's chairman Shishir Baijal noted that stable employment and income growth, more than rate moves alone, will determine whether demand holds at current levels through the rest of the year.