How Much Home Loan Can You Actually Get On Your Salary?

The usual answer is “about 60 times your monthly salary”. It is a rough shorthand that breaks the moment you have a car loan or a working spouse. Lenders do not think in multiples. They think in EMI capacity.

FOIR: the number that decides it

FOIR — Fixed Obligation to Income Ratio — is the share of your monthly income already committed to EMIs, including the new one. Most lenders cap it between 50% and 60%, tightening at lower incomes and loosening at higher ones.

Take a net salary of ₹1,00,000 with a ₹12,000 car EMI, at a 55% cap:

• Total EMI allowed: ₹55,000
• Less the existing car EMI: ₹43,000 available for the home loan
• At about 8.5% over 20 years, ₹43,000 a month services roughly ₹49 lakh

Clear the car loan first and the same salary supports around ₹63 lakh. That is a ₹14 lakh swing from one decision, which is why the order of your borrowing matters as much as the amount.

Then the property caps it again

Whatever your income supports, the loan is also limited by LTV — loan to value. Broadly: up to 90% for properties under ₹30 lakh, 80% between ₹30 and ₹75 lakh, and 75% above that. On a ₹1 crore property you are finding ₹25 lakh yourself regardless of what your salary could carry.

And the sanction is against the lender’s own valuation, not your agreement price. If the valuer comes in below what you agreed to pay, the gap is yours to fund.

Four things that raise the number

• Add a co-applicant. A working spouse’s income is added to yours. It is the single largest lever most people have.
• Stretch the tenure. 20 years to 25 lowers the EMI and raises eligibility — at the cost of substantially more total interest.
• Clear small loans first. A ₹4,000 consumer-durable EMI can cost you several lakhs of eligibility.
• Show the variable pay properly. Bonus and incentives often count if you can evidence two to three years of them. Many applicants never submit the paperwork that would prove it.

Do not borrow to the cap

Eligibility is a ceiling, not a target. At 55% FOIR you are handing over more than half your income before groceries, school fees or a bad month. Most people who regret a home loan borrowed the maximum they were offered.

Run your own numbers on our EMI calculator, then read the home loan criteria. If you want the eligibility worked out against actual lender scorecards rather than a rule of thumb, talk to us first.