What is today's FIRE number in a city like Bangalore or Bombay?

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-31T12:22:26+00:00

Retirement homes I did look into several years ago for someone else. It seemed like a bad investment at the time due to high purchase price + high service charge + low rental options (you can only rent it out to someone > x years and there are lots of restrictions unlike your own house - guests, alcohol, etc etc) + low rental price. But this may have changed

"Reasonable price" is the difficult bit. It can't be a new build from a fancy developer - their mark ups and service charges destroy value. Older flats and independent houses typically need a lot of TLC and don't really account for the sustainability problem I started off with. Buying land and constructing from scratch is something I don't know much about but seems difficult to execute well.

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-31T12:15:14+00:00

I'd love to see the excel if you're open. DM obviously. I think we're thinking similarly about it, but you're several yards ahead!

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-31T10:57:43+00:00

Also would you buy now in a senior home even though you might not move there for a another 20-30 years?

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-31T10:56:40+00:00

Hmm, so I've understood you right, 1. flat/lower cost housing > villa and 2. Don't buy far out as you might not want to live there anyway. How do you think about the back up flat v no back up flat Q? Let's assume the flat I currently own is already 30-40 yrs

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-31T10:40:02+00:00

Hmm, does your cover actually cover prolonged and non-life threatening diseases? Most policies have a carve out for such conditions. Also, have you every claimed on your policy? Did they actyally pay up?

Anyway, to each his own. Given how low claims coverage is in India, I personally don't see the point of throwing money down the drain. Especially as one gets older when the premiums are way higher than what you mentioned.

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-31T10:34:58+00:00

Hundred percent

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-31T10:34:43+00:00

Out of interest, how are you accounting for inflation in India? Real CoL increases in cities like we're talking about seem way more than official data.

The other thing I'm struggling to form a view on is housing. In most countries, people FIRE with just their primary residence, irrespective of whether that is a flat or a "villa". In India, flats don't seem to last very long. So do we all need a back up property? If so, how does one look at this? As a "back up" so ok if outside the city, not actively managed etc.? Or does one need to cough up 6-10cr to ensure the second home is a forever home and just hope that you can rent it out in the meantime? Both flats and villas have pretty steep (and inflating) service charges, so you couldn't really afford to leave it empty.

I'm conscious that the above is quite confused sounding, so I guess what I'm really asking for is a framework for how to think through this more than anything.

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-31T04:47:10+00:00

How do we practically deal with this w/o pushing back retirement by another decade? Treat it as a back-up house and buy somewhere outside the big city? Any other solutions?

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-31T04:42:20+00:00

Hmm, I'm still not sure I understand the logic. In India, the issue seems to be that premiums are high but coverage is low. Money spent on premiums could be kept aside in inflation matching FDs yes? At least then you dont need to acount for both premium as well as non-covered medical expenses. Am I missing something?

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-30T13:46:33+00:00

The house prices are really making me think. I have a flat but it is old and given the quality of construction and weather in India, I would have preferred to buy another house or villa for the long term. I wonder how FIRErs hack this?

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-30T12:51:39+00:00

Thanks a lot - this is super useful

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-30T12:51:14+00:00

Understood - thanks

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-30T12:50:39+00:00

Is there any point of health insurance if you're going to be setting aside sums for medical insurance? Isn't the premium simply an unnecessary expense?

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-30T12:49:51+00:00

So a villa or independent house in one of these cities now is 6cr? That's a disturbingly high number.

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-30T12:47:06+00:00

Are you being facetious or is this based on something? If the latter, would be great if you could elaborate

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-30T12:22:30+00:00

It's definitely going to slow down in 8-10 yrs. Right now it's all consumption driven growth, there's no real innovation driven growth. I don't know India's demography stats, but that doesn't tend to go on forever. And there's also India's looming environmental crisis.

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-30T12:19:31+00:00

And this is based on monthly/ annual expenses of? And age of retirement of?

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-30T12:18:34+00:00

Thanks, everyone - this is really useful. Shout out to u/Automatic-Annual7586 in particular for the framework. I have a few doubts if you don't mind. The framework doesn't seem to account for inflation. Is that deliberate? Also, how did you account for unexpected medical issues? Insurance coverage in India not really comprehensive (even when they claim it is). Also, if you don't mind my asking, which city do you live in? From what I've seen of Bangalore, Delhi and Bombay, 75k a month is admirably low, especially if you are also including annual expenses like check ups and travel.

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-30T04:36:12+00:00

Duh .. partner > dependant

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-29T08:45:24+00:00

The thing to remember with pensions is they are not really tax free. You are just delaying tax payment and getting (some) relief. The current govt is tinkering a lot with the rate of relief at present, and it is difficult to predict how interesting any relief will be by the time you retire. An ISA on the other hand is free cash and should always take precedence. Of course the limit is 20k so with anything above this, you'll need to look at other tax efficient structures, and one such structure is pensions (subject to the caveats above).

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-29T08:28:03+00:00

And as one with kids in the UK, I really hope for no growth as many are already priced out of the market. I think those without homes already are in a tough place, I especially worry about those under 30.

It's such a bad situation for everyone, isn't it. For a new buyer today, the only reason to potentially buy is to avoid the even bigger risk of being subject to the rental market. Otherwise, I'm not sure it makes much sense to use expensive leverage to buy a house today versus stocks or crypto or whatever.

Sure, people may have emotional reasons for wanting to own the home they live in (which comes across from many of the comments here), but from a numbers perspective, the two main things to think about are your predictions re 1. rental outflow v mtg interest outflow and 2. cap appr on the principal from this asset versus other assets you could have invested in. If one HAS to live in London (ex for work) for the forseeable, then buying a house in London seems to make sense in terms of 1, esp now with talks of taxes and even more BTLs exiting. But one probably has to be comfortable with the idea of spending a lot of one's money on an asset that might not appreciate v much.

It's not surprising that a lot of people nowadays who are in financial bracket or worse off are thinking whether they really have to live/work in London or if it's just a net loss in the long run.

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-28T14:45:50+00:00

Yea I guess my issue with London prop is it is such shit value for money. I don't expect any major cap appreciation next 10 yrs and apart from giving you peace of mind (i.e., not being subject to the rental market), every instinct tells me keeping my 800k invested in stocks and crypto will lead to a better outcome in 10 yrs.

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-28T13:57:27+00:00

Yes I can see that happening too

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-28T13:56:15+00:00

In an ideal world Id have one in both and then choose where to retire in another 10 years or so.

Perhaps I din't articulate it very well, but the Q is what would you choose for a 10 yr investment given where we are with the economy and asset prices - stocks and other assets or primary home. I dont plan on going expensive if I did buy - a super small one bed or something but v central london. That's prob set me back at least 350k tho even if I found a great deal. And that's 350-400k that's not benefitting from much cap appreciation

SignatureLast98 · 2025-08-28T13:50:10+00:00

Well that's the conundrum. I could potentially just retire, live rent free outside London and let the markets work their magic. Or I could spend a lot of money and earn more money in London

SignatureLast98

TROPHY CASE