Home Loan Hot Tips

Buying a house is once in a life time decision for most of us. Buying a house can be a fun and exciting experience. But finding the right home is just one step in the process. Most of the us ignore choosing the right home loan and see set of surprises later. Mostly we will refer the builder or friend who had recently taken home loan. Here are some tips to help make finding the right home loan as easy as possible. You can visit LoanYantra.com to compare the home loans. 

“When I took the home loan I compare home loan interest rates of loan products on Loanyantra.com While I was sanctioned a loan for 15 years, I foreclosed my loan six months ago, that is within ten years,” said Gopi Krishna.

What are the right things he did? Read on to learn a few useful tips from him. 

• Tip  1 - Good research:
• Do not go as per what your loan agent says. You do your own research of the best terms available in the market. “While taking a loan, my agent did everything to stop me from going to a specific bank. I later on realized why, specific bank was paying less commission to agents, so they earn less. Hence the agents never encourage few banks,” said Srinivas. “I went and choose the bank that gave me the cheapest rate of interest,” he added.
• Tip  2 - Get your financial documents in order: 
• When you apply for home loan you need to provide your lender with number of financial documents. Having these documents already assembled will help accelerate the processing of your loan application.
• Tip  3 - Park your additional funds: 
• A couple of banks have a facility, which allows borrowers to park their additional funds in the loan accounts. “This will reduce the interest proportionately from the principal amount for the time that the amount was parked. This is an interesting option. This was not there when I took a loan,” said Sandeep.
• Tip  4 - Learn what is floating or fixed rates: 
• There are two types of interest rates that banks offer: floating and fixed interests. Floating interest rate is linked to market. It moves in tandem with a base rate.  Where as fixed interest remains fixed for a few months defined in the loan agreement. It is important to understand that in most cases floating rates work out cheaper than fixed rates in the long run.
• Tip  5 - CIBIL Score : 
• It is important to have a score of 750 plus to get attractive rate of interest on your Home loan. CIBIL data indicate that 80% of the home loan approvals are given to customer who have a credit score of 750 plus. Low CIBIL score could possibly reject your Home loan application or you may have to pay a higher interest rate.
• Tip 6 - Understand foreclosure norms: 
• Recently, RBI banned foreclosure penalties. So make sure you do not pay anything extra while foreclosing your loan.
• Tip 7 - Save up to foreclose: 
• If you can save Rs 1 lakh in the current fiscal, do not use it on a dream holiday abroad. Instead use it to foreclose your loan. “My advice to every borrower is that learn to foreclose your loan as soon as possible. The sooner you free the amount you pay for equitable monthly installments (EMI), the earlier can you enjoy the freedom to spend that money on luxuries of life,” added Sandeep.
• Tip  8 - Compare processing fees:
• whether it is for a fresh loan or for a balance transfer. Enquire in all the banks before you finalize. Also make sure you give a cheque for processing fee instead of adding it to the loan account. If we add processing fee to home loan, say Rs-10,000 fee on 20 years loan with 10% interest rate, then one would endup paying Rs-23161. 
• Tip  9 - Read the documents: 
• Read everything written in the loan agreement before you sign on the dotted line. It is very important to be aware of terms and conditions. "I have to pay Rs-5000 every time I take a home loan provision certificate for tax saving" said Ramesh. 
• Tip 10 - Increase the down payment: 
• every borrower has to pay some money from his own pocket while buying a house. Try to pay as much as possible as down payment. This will reduce your interest paid on the principal.
• Tip  11  - Spend conservatively: 
• Keep a tab on your spends during the home loan tenure. The old adage “A penny saved is a penny earned,” holds true in case of home loan too. When you save money, you could actually use it to foreclose the loan.