The prospective homebuyers, who are looking to cobble together funds to buy an attractive property, now have every reason to cheer.
The country’s largest lender State Bank of India on Friday decided to extend its 8 per cent home loan scheme till March 31, 2010, just a day before it was due to expire. The move is sure to further intensify the already heated competition in the home loan market.
In the past few days banks like Axis Bank and Bank of Rajasthan have launched special scheme for home loan borrowers. Axis Bank came out with a special 8 per cent scheme for the first year and Bank of Rajasthan too dropped home loan rates to 7.5 per cent w.e.f. from November 9 and Punjab National Bank extended its 8.5 per cent scheme till December 31.
(more…)
A new private company called SafeStart is offering a loan repayment option for in-debt students that may provide an alternative to the government’s new income-based repayment (IBR) program. SafeStart is marketed to borrowers at colleges, universities and online schools who are worried about whether they will be able to make their monthly loan repayments after graduation.
To give a fillip to affordable housing across the country, the government is likely to clear a proposal to provide one per cent interest subsidy on housing loans up to Rs 10 lakh for houses not costing more than Rs 20 lakh.