Mumbai & Thane Property Market: What the Official Data Says

1. What the official index says

Source: NHB RESIDEX, HPI@Assessment Prices, quarter ending March 2026, released 18 June 2026. Base FY 2024-25 = 100. Thane is a separate city in the index, not folded into Mumbai.

INTERPRETATIONThe two columns tell different stories and both matter. On level, Mumbai is in a category of its own. On momentum, it is among the slowest major markets in India — Bengaluru grew three times faster over the same year. Thane costs two-thirds of Mumbai per square foot but is appreciating more slowly than Mumbai, not faster, which is the opposite of the usual satellite-city argument.

2. Thane costs more to buy than Mumbai — as a percentage

This is not widely understood and it is worth several lakh rupees.

Base rate: Maharashtra Stamp Act 1958, Schedule I Article 25 — 5% within any Municipal Corporation. Mumbai’s single surcharge sits in section 144F of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act 1888. Thane falls under the Maharashtra Municipal Corporations Act 1949, which carries two separate 1% surcharges at sections 149A and 149B, the second expressly “without prejudice to” the first. Both metro-cess surcharges were suspended to 31 March 2022 and apply from 1 April 2022.

INTERPRETATIONMumbai and Thane are governed by different corporation Acts, and that accident of statute — not any policy about affordability — is why the cheaper city carries the higher rate. On a ₹1.5 crore Thane flat, the extra percentage point is ₹1.5 lakh.

VERIFY THISWe could not retrieve the specific gazette notifications naming Thane for the 149A and 149B levies. The statutory architecture and the suspension windows are confirmed; the city-specific commencement notifications are not. Confirm your exact rate at the sub-registrar before budgeting.

NOT FOUNDThe women’s concession. Maharashtra grants a 1% concession to female purchasers under a notification issued using the power in section 9(a) of the Stamp Act — but we could not retrieve that notification or any instrument setting or removing its resale restriction. We are deliberately not stating its conditions or lock-in length: this is exactly the detail that gets a registration rejected. Ask the sub-registrar directly.

3. The SRA trap: a flat you may not be allowed to buy

Slum rehabilitation buildings contain two kinds of flat that look identical. One you can buy freely. The other you very likely cannot.

FACTUnder DCPR 2034, Regulation 33(10), clause 1.18: a rehabilitation tenement “cannot be sold/leased/assigned or transferred (except to legal heir) in any manner for a period of ten years from the date of allotment/possession.” On breach, “the tenement will be taken over by SRA.”

FACTEven after ten years, a sale requires SRA permission and the purchaser must satisfy conditions set by SRA Circular No. 145:

• Be a resident of Maharashtra with a domicile certificate evidencing 15 years’ residence.
• Own no residence anywhere in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation area — in their own or a family name.
• Neither purchaser, spouse nor minor children may own any residential flat, non-residential unit or plot within BMC limits, privately acquired or allotted by any government body. A notarised affidavit is taken; if it is found false the transfer is cancelled and criminal proceedings may follow.
• A transfer fee is payable equal to the higher of stamp duty on ready-reckoner value or ₹1,00,000 for a residential unit.

Sources: DCPR 2034 Regulation 33(10) clause 1.18; SRA Circular No. 145 dated 24 October 2013, made following Bombay High Court direction in Writ Petition No. 581/2012; SRA circular compendium, October 2025.

INTERPRETATIONRead the eligibility list again. If you already own any property in Greater Mumbai, you are legally ineligible to buy an SRA rehabilitation flat — and the affidavit route around that is a criminal-liability route. Free-sale flats in the same building carry none of these restrictions.

FACTSRA publishes its own warning on this, headed “CAUTION”, telling prospective buyers that there is no restriction on flats built for open-market sale under a rehabilitation scheme, and that they “may apprise themselves from the plans approved by SRA” which category a flat falls into.

That is the only reliable test. Ask for the SRA-approved plan and find your flat on it. Nothing in the sale agreement, and nothing a broker says, substitutes for it.

4. MHADA flats carry their own three traps

FACTUnder Regulation 25 of the MHADA Estate Management Regulations 1981, a society may permit transfer of a MHADA tenement only if five years have elapsed from the date of allotment, and — for EWS, LIG and MIG scheme tenements — the transferee falls within that same income group. A transfer in contravention may be declared invalid, with the transfer to the buyer cancelled.

FACTThe Board may grant permission subject to conditions “including a condition regarding the payment of a portion of the unearned increase in the value of the tenement not exceeding fifty per cent of such increase,” in its absolute discretion.

INTERPRETATIONThree separate problems for a buyer. The five-year clock runs from original allotment, not from your seller’s purchase. Income-group matching can make you legally ineligible regardless of the price agreed. And the discretionary claim to up to half the unearned increase is an open-ended cost that can be imposed as a condition of the very permission your sale depends on. A MHADA resale should be priced net of an unquantified unearned-increase claim.

5. Deemed conveyance: the 2025 change that helps you

FACTA promoter must convey the land and building to the society. Where they fail to, members can apply to the Competent Authority for a certificate of entitlement to unilateral deemed conveyance, which must be decided “within reasonable time and in any case not later than six months.”

FACTSection 11A, inserted into the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act by Mah. 65 of 2025 and deemed effective from 1 May 2016, extends that unilateral deemed-conveyance route to RERA-registered projects where the promoter has failed to execute a registered conveyance under section 17 of RERA.

INTERPRETATIONThis is the most consequential 2025 legal development for a Mumbai or Thane buyer, and it is not on MahaRERA’s own pages. It settles years of ambiguity about whether the older Act or RERA governs a post-2016 project — RERA governs, but the deemed-conveyance machinery is expressly preserved and extended.

6. Buying into a building slated for redevelopment

What you are buying is a contingent entitlement, and it is defined by the regulation the scheme runs under — not by your sale deed.

Source: DCPR 2034, sanctioned by Urban Development Department notification dated 8 May 2018 and gazetted May 2018.

INTERPRETATIONTwo exposures worth naming. Under 33(7), a bare 51% of occupiers can bind you to a redevelopment you did not vote for. And under 33(9) the corpus fund is sized for ten years of maintenance — after which the liability is the society’s, meaning yours.

7. What MahaRERA actually delivers

FACTUp to December 2025, 53,012 projects were registered with MahaRERA. Since inception it has received 32,377 complaints, of which 26,011 were resolved.

Source: Economic Survey of Maharashtra 2025-26, Chapter 10, published 5 March 2026.

INTERPRETATIONThat leaves roughly 6,400 complaints open on a cumulative base — about a 20% open rate since 2017. That, not the statutory timeline, is the realistic base rate for how long a MahaRERA remedy takes. Register your expectations accordingly.

NOT FOUNDMahaRERA’s own website was unreachable throughout our research. Agent registration fees, validity, renewal terms, the agent competency examination requirement, the project grading system and 2025-26 enforcement actions could not be verified and are not stated here. Maharashtra is the one state that requires agents to pass a competency exam — confirm the current requirement on the MahaRERA portal directly.

8. Infrastructure: what is running, and what is a 2030 bet

Source: Economic Survey of Maharashtra 2025-26, Chapter 9, Tables 9.34 and 9.35, published 5 March 2026; PIB releases of 12 January 2024, 5 October 2024 and 8 October 2025.

INTERPRETATIONThree tiers here, and they should not be priced the same. Lines 9 and 4A are effectively delivered. Lines 2B, 4 and 6 at 83–90% are credible for 2027. Line 11 has no DPR and a 2032 date — that is an announcement, not a project. Note also that Line 5 is recorded at 97% for Phase I yet dated June 2030; the date, not the percentage, is the official commitment.

INTERPRETATIONThane’s whole infrastructure case is a 2027–2030 bet, not a 2026 one. Its rail link to Mumbai (Line 4) is November 2027, the Borivali tunnel had less than a fifth of its budget spent against a 2028 date, and the ring metro has no published completion date at all — while Thane already charges a percentage point more stamp duty than Mumbai.

FACTOn Navi Mumbai: the airport is not merely inaugurated. The state’s own statistical authority records that it “started flight operation from December 2025.” But Atal Setu’s land-side connectors are not finished — the Sewri–Worli Elevated Connector was 62% complete and expected in 2026, and MTHL connectivity is dated 2027. The sea crossing is real; the Mumbai approach is incomplete.

NOT FOUNDMumbai Coastal Road. We could not establish which sections are open or since when. BMC’s own project page is stamped “last updated 12/03/2021” and describes the project as under construction; the state Economic Survey does not mention it at all. We are not repeating unofficial claims.

9. Who these markets suit — and who should walk

Mumbai suits you if

• You are buying to live in, over a long horizon, and are not relying on appreciation — the index has moved 4.5% in a year at India’s highest price level.
• You have the conveyance deed or deemed-conveyance order in hand, not a promise of one.
• You are buying a free-sale flat and have found it on the SRA-approved plan, or the building has no SRA component at all.
• You can fund proper legal diligence — in this market it is the cheapest money you will spend.

Thane suits you if

• You are comfortable that its infrastructure case matures in 2027 to 2030, and you are buying for that horizon rather than this one.
• You have priced in the extra percentage point of stamp duty against Mumbai.
• You want two-thirds of Mumbai’s price per square foot and accept slower appreciation, not faster.

Walk away if

• The flat is an SRA rehabilitation tenement and you own property in Greater Mumbai or lack a 15-year Maharashtra domicile. You are not eligible, and the affidavit workaround is a criminal matter.
• It is a MHADA unit and you fall outside the scheme’s income group, or fewer than five years have passed since original allotment.
• The society has no conveyance and the seller cannot show you an order.
• You are buying into a redevelopment and cannot see the MBRRB-certified list or the approved scheme documents that define your entitlement.
• You are pricing in Metro Line 11 or the Coastal Road — one has no DPR and the other we could not verify at all.

10. Before you pay anything

1. Establish whether the flat is rehab or free-sale by finding it on the SRA-approved plan. SRA itself tells buyers to do this.
2. If MHADA: check the allotment date, the scheme income group, and ask what unearned-increase share the Board will demand as a condition of permission.
3. Ask for the conveyance deed or deemed-conveyance order. Not an application receipt.
4. If redevelopment is planned or under way, get the documents that define your entitlement — the certified occupant list, the scheme regulation, the consent record.
5. Confirm your stamp duty rate for the exact municipal jurisdiction. Mumbai and Thane differ, and the difference is statutory, not negotiable.
6. Confirm the women’s concession conditions with the sub-registrar if you are structuring ownership around it. We could not source them.
7. Check the ready reckoner value on the day you transact. It drives stamp duty, redevelopment entitlements, SRA transfer fees and incentive FSI calculations.
8. Verify the built-up and carpet areas against the registered agreement, and remember the under-stamping penalty runs monthly from the date of execution.
9. Check the project on MahaRERA — registration, declared completion date, complaint history, quarterly updates.

Sources and method

Price data: NHB RESIDEX (HPI@Assessment Prices), quarter ending March 2026. Transaction costs: Maharashtra Stamp Act 1958, the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act 1888, the Maharashtra Municipal Corporations Act 1949 and the IGR Maharashtra registration fee table. Redevelopment: DCPR 2034 as sanctioned. Slum rehabilitation: SRA circular compendium, October 2025. MHADA: the Estate Management Regulations 1981. Conveyance: Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act 1963 as amended to January 2026. Statistics and infrastructure: Economic Survey of Maharashtra 2025-26 and PIB.

Deliberately not used: price data from property portals, which publish asking prices rather than valuations. MahaRERA’s website and the official ready reckoner portal were unreachable throughout, so agent fees, the competency exam requirement, project grading and current reckoner percentages are marked as gaps rather than filled from unofficial sources.

Last verified: 22 August 2026. This page is educational and is not property, legal, tax or investment advice. Property decisions carry financial and legal risk, and reckoner rates, stamp duty, development control norms and scheme terms change. Verify every figure that affects your money with the relevant authority before acting on it. This site does not sell listings or leads, does not represent any developer, broker or property portal, and has no commercial interest in whether you buy.