Purpose The purpose of the study is to determine website quality, materialism, psychological factors, hedonic value and social media as factors that influence the young adults’ impulsive housing and real estate buying behavior in India. In addition, this study also measures the mediating effects of social media influence between psychological factors and hedonic value and young adults’ impulsive housing and real estate buying behavior. Design/methodology/approach Related literature, quantifiable variables with a five-point Likert Scale, hypothesis testing and mediators are used to study the model. A systematic questionnaire that was divided into six sections was used. A total of 385 valid responses were collected and analyzed through a structural equation model. Findings The results suggest that materialism, psychological factors and social media have a considerable impact on young adults’ impulsive housing and real estate buying behavior. The findings also ascertained that website quality and hedonic value do not have a considerable impact on young adults’ impulsive housing and real estate buying behavior. Research limitations/implications This study is limited to the responses of young consumers from a limited number of brokers and regions in India. Future studies could be more widespread across the globe. Originality/value As per the review of existing literature, this research is the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to determine the factors affecting the impulse buying decision mainly in the housing and real estate sector with the target consumers being young.