Housing affordability in India’s financial capital has improved to its strongest level since 2010, according to a Knight Frank report covering the first half of calendar-year 2025. The property consultant says Mumbai’s home-loan equated-monthly-instalment-to-income ratio slipped below the 50% mark for the first time, giving purchasers their most favourable position in 15 years. Knight Frank attributes the gain largely to the Reserve Bank of India’s cumulative 100-basis-point reduction in the policy repo rate earlier this year, which has lowered mortgage rates even as residential prices remained broadly stable. The firm notes that financing costs had been the single biggest constraint on ownership in the city and that recent cuts, alongside steady wage growth, have eased that pressure. The brighter picture, however, masks a still-daunting gap between incomes and property values. A separate analysis highlighted by The Economic Times estimates that even households in Mumbai’s top 5% income bracket would need to set aside more than a century of savings to purchase a 1,000-square-foot apartment at prevailing prices, underscoring the challenge policymakers face in translating lower borrowing costs into broad-based home ownership.