'Most Indian real estate investors fail': Advisor reveals the property trap killing them

You didn’t buy the wrong property—you bought it on someone else’s timeline.

That’s the blunt diagnosis from real estate advisor Aishwarya Shri Kapoor, who says the biggest reason Indian investors underperform isn’t poor asset choice—it’s copying the wrong holding strategy.

In a LinkedIn post, Kapoor dismantles the “one-size-fits-all” approach to real estate. “You’re using a PE fund’s exit strategy with your own EMI,” she writes. “Mismatch begins here.”

Kapoor breaks down the landscape into three distinct timelines:

• Speculative entry: Early-stage land or pre-infra projects, meant for 3–6 year holds.
• Rental play: Ready-to-move homes or commercial properties, ideally held for 7–10 years.
• Capital rotation: Builder inventory flips, held for 18–36 months.

“Same property. Three different timeframes. Three completely different outcomes,” she says.

The key mistake? Using another investor’s logic—usually a fund or builder’s—and assuming it fits your own financial setup. “If your entry logic = someone else’s exit plan, you’ll always lose.”

Kapoor points out that the Indian market isn’t monolithic. It’s a tangle of strategies playing out at once—from REITs and funds to flippers and end users. “The person selling to you might be rotating. The person buying from you might be holding.”

Her 2025 playbook is simple:

• Know your holding horizon before writing the investment ticket.
• Match your IRR to the market phase.
• Don’t mix long-term assets with short-term liquidity plans.
• Always ask: Who’s selling, and why now?

“Buying the right asset on the wrong timeline,” she writes, “is the #1 way investors underperform in Indian real estate.”