Nikhil Kamath's U-Turn: From Renting Advocate to Homebuyer - Read Now

It was, hence, an ironical moment when Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath splurged money to buy a house, taking into consideration the extent to which he has gone about pleading the case for renting as the better alternative. It was in a recent episode of the podcast "WTF is with Nikhil Kamath" that he revisited the old debate of buying vs renting with real estate leaders such as Irfan Razack, Chairman & MD of Prestige Group and Karan Virwani, CEO of WeWork India.

Kamath, who prefers to lease and has chosen to comment on the negative features of renting said: "You do not have foresight as to when you can move out of the house". This uncertainty had dictated his decision of buying a house. However much he has criticized this early stage, Kamath admitted there was an emotional fragility having no fixity about housing.

When asked about the monetary gains from owning real estate, Kamath indicated his distaste for its illiquidity nature. "I hate the illiquid nature of real estate," he said. He further quoted a comparison between stock market and real estate in saying that property values are arbitrary, thereby having the propensity to record swings due to changes in supply and demand, he pointed out. Stamp duty fees pertaining to the purchase of properties further irked him as such does not exist in the stock market.

Topics of discussion by real estate experts in the podcast episode included whether owning or renting properties was more profitable. Kamath said most people do not earn significant returns on rental investments. "Accounting for inflation and interest rates, the return on this investment is negligible," he concluded.

As the owner of net worth according to Forbes at $3.1 billion, change in the mindset of Kamath towards home ownership will be a query raised about the new ground that real estate investments stand upon today's market.