With so many housing financial institutions and commercial banks offering home loans it becomes a tough task for a common home loan seeker to zero-in on his or her choice of the lender.
The factors that are usually considered before seeking a loan include (1) Interest rates (2) Floating or fixed rates (3) Quantum of loan sanctioned (4) Time taken to sanction loan (5) Any special offers that are being offered apart from the usual ones.
Many times a borrower will consider lower interest rates as the main criteria to seek a loan from a HFI and applies, assuming the loan would be sanctioned quickly. But to his/her horror he finds out that though the rates were low the time taken to approve the loan and send the cheque was very long.
Further, at the time of availing oneself of a loan it would also be prudent to consider the HFI’s policy on penalty for pre-closure or if there are any charges in case of shifting the loan to another HFI during the course of the repayment period.
Shamila, AGM, Canfin Homes Ltd., Jayanagar branch, has an interesting information and offer to share on the referral programme that her office has introduced. An existing home loan customer can refer up to a maximum of two new customers and get his/her processing fee of 0.50 per cent reimbursed and credited to the loan account.
For example, if a customer had taken a loan of Rs.20 lakh and had paid Rs.10,000 as the processing fee at 0.50 per cent, upon introducing one new customer to Canfin the processing fee he had paid to the extent of 0.25 per cent (Rs.5,000) would be credited to his account; introducing another customer would mean another 0.25 per cent (Rs.5,000) would be credited to the account.
Further, she said that if the documentation process is satisfactorily completed by the borrower the loans are approved and loan cheques released within four to five working days.
Ms. Shamila also indicated that if an existing borrower has an impeccable repayment track record of his/her previous home loan and wants to go for a loan for a second time Canfin would even consider offering interest at a reduced rate, subject to necessary approvals. The benefits of being disciplined and loyal cannot be ignored considering the prevailing interest rates.
It is a jungle out there with numerous financial institutions offering home loans; an advice for the home loan seekers is to do their homework by checking thoroughly on various factors, pros & cons of such offers and then submit their applications.
