Nikhil Kamath, co-founder of Zerodha, who had once backed to living in a rented house – reversed his stance and decided to purchase a home. Kamath, who has consistently favoured renting as a more advantageous option, reignited the buying vs renting debate in a recent episode of his podcast "WTF is with Nikhil Kamath", alongside Irfan Razack, Chairman & MD of Prestige Group, Nirupa Shankar, Executive Director at Brigade Group, and Karan Virwani, CEO of WeWork India.
The 37-year-old discussed the limitations of renting a house, saying: “The thing with renting, of all the advantages of renting, there is one disadvantage: you don’t have foresight as to when you can move out of the house. I had to move out of this house, whereas I might have liked to stay longer.”
When asked if he thought buying a house could add to his financial strength, Kamath said he disliked the illiquid nature of real estate.
“I feel something like gold can give that to me. I hate the illiquid nature of real estate. Places like this have fewer buyers, and if 10 people decide to sell, the price goes haywire and pricing is very arbitrary in nature. The stock market, in comparison, has more participants. If in a certain company one million people decide to sell, then it will make a significant difference,” he said.
The Zerodha billionaire also expressed his displeasure over paying the stamp duty imposed by the government on property prices. “In the stock market, I can buy and sell without paying 5% to 6% stamp duty,” he noted.