You may be ready to take a loan
to fund your dreams for a new home. But the challenge you now face is in
getting the loan at the right price, from the right lender with all the right
benefits. Given that there are so many lenders out there wooing customers with
attractive features on its home loan products it can be quite confusing for a
lay person to cover all bases and make the right decision as to which home loan
to opt for.
Most people do the age-old
exercise of asking friends and family about home loans available in the market
and their views or experiences with different lenders, then going down in
person to the shortlisted lenders and finding out more about the loans
available. They then return home, collate all the required information and
documentation and take it back in person to the lender for perusal and review.
The applicant then waits to hear whether or not his/her loan has been approved
or rejected.
This may be great for the
generations of yore who didn’t have the benefit of technology to help get
everything done from one place i.e. the comfort of their homes. Lenders have
long since embraced technology and established portals through which potential
borrowers can browse their loan offerings and the eligibility and documentation
requirements. They even go one step further by allowing users of their websites
to apply for
their loans online, home loans included. All required details for a
complete loan application would have to be keyed in by the applicant and the
processing begins thereafter. What’s more, applicant’s can subsequently track
the status of their loan application through the lender’s website by keying in
details from their application.
For e.g. if you were to log into
ICICI Bank’s website and navigate to ‘Home Loans’ from under the ‘Products’
tab, you would immediately see an icon that says ‘Apply Online’. By clicking on
this icon you are redirected to a page that first determines your eligibility
for the home loan by asking you to fill in details relating to the city where
your property is, the reason for the loan, the city you currently reside in,
your date of birth, and your employment type. You also have the option here of
including a co-applicant’s income. You can then get a quote by filling up your
name and contact details followed by the loan amount and tenor that you are
looking at. Once you decide to apply you can go ahead to the following pages to
fill in the loan application.
The process is similar to most
lenders and is a very convenient way to apply for a home loan. It saves time
and travel and you also get all information regarding the home loan schemes
with their details, terms and conditions at one place. It is particularly
useful for those who do not have easy physical access to banks/institutions.
While this may be a useful way to
apply for a home loan from an individual lender there is still the issue of
comparing loan products across different lenders. It can still be confusing and
time -consuming for an individual to browse the websites of all lenders in the
market and make a comparison based on calculations as to whose offer is the
best. There may be lenders you aren’t even aware of much less decide to go to
their website.
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To overcome this, many financial
sites have collated information about lenders and their home loan products into
one website. Bank Bazaar is one such company that provides comprehensive
information about loan products. By visiting bankbazaar, users can not only get
individual lender’s home loan product information but can also easily calculate
maturity values, EMIs etc using their online financial tools. They also provide
for easy comparison of loans. Users can then apply for loans through this
website for the selected lender and obtain great deals that they would not
otherwise have got by visiting the bank/financial institution themselves. This
is because of Bank Bazaar’s tie-up with various lenders to avail of great
rates/benefits to those applying for home loans through its site. Besides the
ease of use in applying for your home loan, you can also browse through various
user reviews that give you valuable information on their experience with
various lenders. Bank Bazaar also has a repository of information on home loans
that users can make use of to understand the product and market better.
The ease of applying for home
loans online in India will only get more popular as more borrowers begin to
trust this mode of dealing with lenders. Besides home loans, various other
loans can also be applied for in the above mentioned ways. It would be prudent
for all users, though, to do their homework before applying online so as to not
sustain a fallout from lack of information or understanding.
