IIM graduate earning Rs 1.2 crore says buying a home in Gurgaon remains out of reach, sparks discussion

A Reddit post by a high-earning corporate professional has reignited debate around the affordability of housing in Gurgaon, after the individual said that even an annual income of Rs 1.2 crore was insufficient to comfortably buy a home in the city’s prime locations.

The anonymous user, a 40-year-old senior executive at a publicly listed company and an alumnus of IIM Bangalore, informed on Reddit that he earns a cost-to-company salary of Rs 1.2 crore a year and is the sole earner in a family of three with no children or major financial liabilities. He stated that his lifetime savings stand at slightly over Rs 7 crore and that his monthly earnings are around Rs 6 lakh.

Despite this financial position, the professional said purchasing a home near his workplace in Gurgaon remained a struggle. He stated that builder floors of about 2,300 sq ft in DLF Phase 2 start at around Rs 5 crore, while larger four-bedroom homes in premium developments such as MGF Vilas are priced above Rs 14 crore, which he said was far beyond his ability to fund either through a down payment or long-term EMIs. He added that even older apartments cost between Rs 3.5 crore and Rs 4.5 crore, and once renovation, brokerage and registration charges are included, the total expenditure approaches Rs 5 crore.

The user explained that buying a new four-bedroom home priced at Rs 5 crore would require either deploying nearly his entire net worth after accounting for additional charges of roughly Rs 40 lakh, or committing to a long-term loan that would keep him working for another two decades, despite limited job security at his age and seniority. He also pointed to concerns over construction quality in builder floors, limited amenities, and the absence of parks, clubs, clean air and water, stating that structural issues often emerge within a few years of purchase.

1 Crore CTC, Still Priced out of Gurgaon?
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He further stated that even with a Rs 3 crore down payment, monthly EMIs would range between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 3 lakh for several years, questioning who could realistically afford property in Gurgaon if senior professionals earning over Rs 1 crore annually were effectively priced out.

The post struck a chord with several users, many of whom stated that property purchases in prime Gurgaon locations are often driven by inherited wealth, high-net-worth individuals or investors rather than salaried professionals. Some commenters suggested that the city has very few genuinely liveable areas, largely limited to DLF Phases 1 to 5 and parts of Golf Course Extension Road, and argued that professionals working in Gurgaon are reluctant to move to more distant locations such as Dwarka Expressway due to weaker infrastructure, schools and social amenities.

Others advised the poster to consider building a larger retirement corpus and relocating to a less expensive city with a better quality of life, noting that Gurgaon’s real estate market no longer reflects the earning capacity of even the country’s top salaried professionals.