Give full details about your existing borrowings (including credit cards) and good repayment track record to all lenders. Remember most banks will check with the Credit Bureau anyway to find out about your existing borrowing and repayment track record. So making full disclosure about your existuing borrowings makes sense and can actually be used to reduce rates further.

Give copies of all property papers along with the application form so that any problems can be highlighted quickly. Obtain copies/formats of the NOC issued by the society/other authority in earlier cases and ensure that the particular format is acceptable to the bank. The society or other authority is unlikely to change its format for your lender.

A final word of caution before you prepay: Make sure that you have enough reserves set aside to see you through a rainy day or a sudden crisis that can crop up from nowhere. Or else, you will be forced to repeat the cycle: another loan, another interest rate structure, and yet another saga of prepayment penalties.

For example assuming you have a Rs 15-lakh loan for a 20-year term at an interest rate of 12%, your indicative EMI would be around Rs 16517. If the interest rate inches up to 13%, you would have to pre-pay around Rs 90,000 to retain the same EMI and tenure.

The answer lies in the illiquid nature of property. It's not easy for the bank to sell Kumar's house to recover the loan, if he defaults. As property is not a standard product, its price may vary from area to area and with time. Also, banks will not find it easy to evict existing occupants from the house to sell it.

Most co-operative banks are small in size and it is difficult for them to lend loans at lower interest rates. However, if these lower lending rates continue to remain low in the market for a while, the co-operatives may be forced to reduce the rates to stop customers from switching over to other banks.

This data on differential PLRs is expected to bring more transparency into the pricing of retail loans. It is very likely that RBI may reiterate the need to maintain a single BPLR and disclose cost details to the customer while charging an interest rate for a particular loan, especially in the floating rate segment.

Fixed rate home loans for 10-20 years are 9.75 (if margin is up to 25 per cent) and 10 per cent (if the margin is more than 25 per cent). Floating home loan rates for the same period is 10.50 per cent (if margin is up to 25 per cent) and 10.75 per cent, if the margin is more than 25 per cent.

Fixed rate home loans for 10-20 years are 9.75 (if margin is up to 25 per cent) and 10 per cent (if the margin is more than 25 per cent). Floating home loan rates for the same period is 10.50 per cent (if margin is up to 25 per cent) and 10.75 per cent, if the margin is more than 25 per cent.

An additional concession of up to 50 basis points will be offered if the margin or the down payment is 25 per cent and above for loans above Rs 20 lakh. A concession of up to 50 per cent will also be offered on the processing fee.