New Delhi, April 19 -- I asked ChatGPT and Gemini a straightforward question about home loans, and their answers completely shifted how I think about buying a house in India right now.

Falling in the Rs.7-9 lakh LPA income bracket, I was tempted to fall into the societal pressure of stopping "wasting money on rent" and instead look at buying a house of my own. The real question, however, is how much I can truly afford without stretching myself too thin.

Instead of walking into a bank and getting stuck with an EMI, I asked ChatGPT and Gemini about the actual cost of owning a property by using first principles.

I gave the chatbots a very specific prompt: "Act as a financial expert using first-principles thinking. If I have a yearly salar...