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Which of the following is not correct and why?

  • If we had stopped that taxi earlier, we would be home by now.
  • If we had stopped that taxi earlier, we would have been home by now.

My teacher told me the second is incorrect.

In this post and also this they use a similar grammar as the second sentence, yet I'm asking if 'by now' can be used with such tense (relatively check this) specially when combined with conditionals. I think 'by now' refers to some period of time from the past until now, so the second sentence could be correct.

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    Your teacher is wrong. 'Have been home' can mean 'have arrived at home' in ordinary speech.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Sep 24, 2022 at 15:42

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Both are correct, and both have the same effective meaning in the context, but the logic is different.

The logic of the first sentence is: We are not home right now because we didn't stop that taxi earlier.

The logic of the second sentence is: We haven't arrived home yet because we didn't stop that taxi earlier.

To "not be home" and to "not have arrived at home yet" are semantically the same thing, so the sentences have the same meaning in the context.

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