With the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic affecting cash flows, job security, salary cuts and unprecedented economic crisis, monthly Loan EMIs have become an unfortunate situation for middle-class families. In such a situation, if you have a financial liability of a Home Loan, it becomes daunting. Fortunately, some effortless yet intelligent ways are available for the real estate industry borrowers to reduce their home loan EMI.
Let’s dive into few detailed tips to ease your home loan repayments:
RBI Initiative – EMI Holiday
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued new loan restructuring guidelines, with a six-month moratorium on existing loans to ease the financial crisis. The moratorium period is when a borrower is exempted from paying monthly EMIs, i.e., EMI holiday. So, this will save you from hefty monthly payments till the time you get back on foot.
Refinancing Home Loan
One of the most feasible ways to manage a home loan is refinancing at a lower interest rate. You can look for a new lender offering a loan at a lower interest rate mid-loan and managing the crisis. Switching to a new lender with better interest or tenure restructuring for repayment is the easiest option for any home loan. Just place your request for a loan-balance transfer with your existing lender and choose a flexible new lender.
Expert’s advice: Switch to a lender which offers Marginal Cost of Funds based Lending Rate (MCLR) so that you can benefit from lower repo rates.
Pre-payment Options
During the pandemic, most banks and NBFC (non-banking financial corporations) have waived off fees on pre-payment of home loans. Adding to your benefit, this waiver enabled you to pay the bulk of money against your loan. Hence, your interest for the outstanding loan amount will substantially reduce. You can now make a wise decision, pool in your savings, and use this home loan overdraft facility to reduce your home loan EMIs.
Bigger Down Payments
It is a common trend of paying more significant down payments in the real estate industry to reduce both interests and EMIs. If possible, try to break up your cost into a big sum of down payment as per feasibility when applying for a home loan. This will cut down your gross interest and EMI amounts. Moreover, Government has relaxed withdrawals from Employee Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) account as per new rules. From March 2020, the labor ministry issued a notification allowing 60 million subscribers to withdraw up to 75% of their retirement savings or up to three months’ basic salary and dearness allowance (DA) from their Provident Fund account, whichever is lower. So, make the most of this facility by using this sum of money to pay a higher down payment.
Home Loan Tenure Extension
The final alternative for managing your home loan is restructuring it into a longer tenure to reduce EMIs. However, you will end up paying more interest, but it will ease out your monthly payouts in a difficult time. You also have to get it approved as per your retirement age and period left to that. Still, this can be considered as a last resort for reducing home loan EMIs.
As a borrower, you can avail the most feasible and easy option for your financial burdens in this pandemic. With some planning and clever tactics, seek out the best way to manage your home loan. Also, carefully calculate your interest, tenure, refinancing option, new lender, loan policies; to make a wise and informed decision.