The invisible buyers

A friend recently shared a viral social media thread about housing prices in Gurgaon that struck a nerve across urban India. The author described someone earning twenty lakh rupees annually – placing him in the top five per cent of Indian earners – yet unable to afford even the most basic flat in his city. Every project starts at two and a half crores, complete with infinity pools and Italian marble that this prospective buyer neither needs nor wants. This isn't just a Gurgaon problem. From Mumbai's suburbs to Bangalore's periphery, the same story plays out with depressing regularity. Young professionals, couples starting families, and middle-class savers find themselves priced out of markets where they work and live. The numbers simply don't add up when you match legitimate incomes against property prices. Yet somehow, these flats sell. The obvious question follows: if people earning twenty lakhs annually can't afford them, who exactly is buying these properties? Suggested read: Raising the risk Of course, the answer is obvious and has been so for a long time. There's the visible market, where documented incomes meet t