Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Government plans to fix home loan rates for PSU Banks at 9.5% will be ineffective...Heres why?

Public sector banks are set to offer home loans of up to Rs20 - 25 lakh at a concessional rate of 9.5% for a period of five years as part of the government’s fiscal stimulus package to spur spending and bolster sagging economic growth. Read more

This would mean the cost of funds is greater than the return that these PSBs would be getting. As it is the profitability and efficiency of the Indian PSBs are dangling. Banks and housing finance firms are now charging between 12% and 14% for fixed-rate home loans and offering floating-rate mortgages at between 9.5% and 11.75%.

It seems the Indian bankers have not learnt the lessons of subprime crisis and option ARM pricing. Rates will stay at 9.5% until the loan resets to the market rate.This will greatly harm the bankers as it has done in the subprime crisis.

PSU Banks account for only 20% of the total housing market, hence limiting the scope of the stimulus package.

The obvious outcome of this policy will be that the homebuilders will price the houses at 20 - 25 laks in white and the remaining in black to increase sales. Moreover, they will build jodi flats, which will individually cost 25 laks and the affluent buyers can make use of this scheme to benefit.

One concern is what will happen once the interest rates fall below 9.5%, which seems to be happening in the next 2 years. Nothing has been mentioned and this makes the deal unattractive!

1 comment:

Pradeep Sonthalia said...

bhaii amazing article, tune to dhajiya udadi hain RBI ke plans ki..
good going