Should an NRI buy property in India? A calm look
You are settled in Dubai, or Toronto, or Singapore, and a familiar ache returns each time you visit home: a flat, a piece of land, something here that is unmistakably yours. It is rarely a pure investment decision, whatever the spreadsheet says. It is belonging, dressed up as a balance-sheet entry, and it deserves to be looked at honestly rather than dismissed or rushed.
Let me be clear from the outset that this is a personal view, not advice for your particular situation. But I have watched this decision unfold many times, across many families, and the gap between the warm dream and the daily reality is precisely where most of the later regret tends to live.
The pull is real, and so is the friction
The emotional case is genuine and worth honouring: a foothold at home, a place for ageing parents, a quiet reassurance that you have not drifted entirely away from where you began. But property is illiquid in a way few people truly anticipate. Selling can take many months, sometimes years; you cannot trim a flat the way you trim a portfolio when life changes. Managing it from abroad is its own quiet tax, the tenant, the leaking repair, the society dues, the cousin who promised to keep an eye and slowly stopped. And the paperwork around remittance, FEMA rules and the taxation of rent and eventual sale is genuinely intricate.
Property is belonging dressed as a balance-sheet entry, and that is exactly why it needs a clear eye.
A calmer way to decide
So separate the two questions before you decide anything. If this is mostly about the heart, a home you will use and love and return to, then judge it honestly on that basis, and budget for the friction with your eyes fully open. If it is mostly about returns, ask yourself plainly whether a less emotional, more liquid route might serve the same financial goal with far less weight resting on your shoulders from afar. Either answer can be the right one; the only real error is letting the heart argue the case while quietly pretending it is the head. And because FEMA, repatriation and tax rules change and turn closely on your specific residency status, please take qualified professional guidance before you commit capital, not after.
What to remember
- Name the real motive first: belonging or returns. They lead to very different choices.
- Property is illiquid and needs active managing; price that friction in from the start.
- FEMA and tax rules are intricate and shifting; take professional guidance before committing.
In twenty years of sitting with families spread across continents, the buyers who stayed genuinely content were the ones who knew exactly why they were buying. The ones who quietly suffered had hoped a single asset would somehow carry both their longing and their savings at once. It rarely carries both well. Decide, gently and in advance, which of the two you are truly asking it to hold.
Hardik Joshi is the Founder of Shrey Wealth (ARN-255332), an AMFI-registered Mutual Fund & SIF Distributor and APMI-registered PMS Distributor (APRN-02027). Shrey Wealth is NOT a SEBI-registered Investment Adviser; views shared here are personal and for educational and awareness purposes only. Mutual fund investments are subject to market risks; read all scheme-related documents carefully. Past performance is not indicative of future results.