4 simple tips will get you the best home loan product. Try them today!

It has become imperative, in today’s times, to take a home loan if one wants to buy a house. The cost of real estate has escalated tremendously over the last decade, and most buyers are unable to fund the purchase unless they take a home loan.

Therein lies the catch – there are so many home loan products available, that selecting the best one can often become challenging. So we’ve compiled a guide to help you select the best home loan:

1 Research the best interest rates.

This will take some work, but it is well worth the effort. Go online and look up the current interest rates being offered on home loans. Post-demonetisation, interest rates on home loans have dropped but some are still quite higher than others. You can do the home loan interest comparison quite easily online. Even better, you can apply for the loan online when you find a suitable rate of interest and good payment terms (repayment as well as processing charges, etc.)

2 Look up home loan offers.

The best banks and housing finance companies in India offer not just low interest rates, but also periodic offers on other features of their home loans. While some offer heavy limited period discounts on interest, others waive off processing fees. Still others promote the Government’s housing initiatives with the best interest rates for affordable housing. It is worth your while to keep track of what the best banks and housing finance companies are offering by checking their websites – this helps you draw a good home loan comparison to make a well informed decision.

3 Go to reputed housing finance companies.

All banks and financial institutions in the country offer home loan products, but not all of them are equally good. It is always better to partner with the market leaders when it comes to buying a house – after all, you are making an expensive acquisition, and only the most reputed housing finance companies can take you over the finish line. When choosing the lending institution, check for these factors: tenure being offered, the interest rate, the processing fees and the loan application process.

4 Take the plunge in a buyer’s market.

The spiralling costs of real estate all over the country have ensured that lakhs of new dwelling units remain unsold all over India. The sluggish economy and demonetisation have also not been kind to the real estate sector. Developers are at their wits’ end trying to sell the houses in their luxury residential projects. There is a demand for affordable housing, fuelled by buyers’ need to capitalise on the drop in interest rates to get a home loan. It is currently a buyer’s market, and buyers have good negotiating power at the moment, for both resale and new properties.

5 Factor in all other costs.

The stamp duty and registration costs accrue to at least 5% of the overall property cost – this is a huge number if the property is an expensive one! Most buyers forget to factor in this payment. It must be added to the overall cost of the house, apart from other costs such as loan application processing fees, registration fees to be paid to the lending institution (to register the agreement between lender and borrower), the pre-EMI payment to be made till the first EMI is deducted from the account, and so on. Get a list of all these costs across lending institutions so that you can make the right home loan comparison.

• Business