In the home loan market, even today we come across home owners who are not aware that they can switch their existing home loans and save as much as 10 – 30% of their home loan amount. So we feel a great satisfaction and pride with every customer we help save. It is one more step for us towards making the home loan market customer friendly.

Here we are sharing the story of one of our happy customers – Mr & Mrs Prajapati

Earlier this year in March 2015, Rahul Prajapati contacted us to evaluate switching his home loan. He had a loan from ICICI bank with the interest rate of 11.5%. Since most bank interest rates at the time were much lower, clearly a switch would be beneficial. After a fair bit of research we found a particular loan with SBI to be the best choice.

However we soon found out that switching to this loan of choice wasn't going to be the usual smooth process. Here is why.

As our Home Loan Advisor, Abhishek Soni started the loan switching process, he realized that there was a problem. Rahul was the fourth owner of the property, and the previous owners hadn't registered the property at all. Hence, SBI was reluctant to give a takeover home loan. As it turns out, in Rahul's case, an age-old adage stood true: Where there is a will, there is a way.

Despite SBI's numerous objections, our HLA persisted to help Rahul get the loan of choice. However, even after numerous calls & follow ups with SBI, the switch seemed impossible. Suddenly, out of the blue, Rahul got a call that his home loan had been approved! SBI had re-examined the case and decided that Rahul was, in fact, eligible for switching his loan to their bank. It was time for the Prajapatis to celebrate! The new interest rate on the SBI loan was 9.55%. This small drop in the interest rate amount led to a substantial saving – a whopping 12,94,650 Rupees.

And this was one more customer case that we closed on a positive note. It was a pleasure for us to process Rahul's case and help him get the best home loan possible.

This is Prasad's story. And what a story it is!

Prasad had taken a home loan of Rs. 10Lc from IndiaBulls Housing Finance Limited. Immediately by the end of the FY, he had repaid Rs. 3Lc from the total loan. For this loan, Prasad was being charged a high interest rate of 12.78%. Everything was fine and Prasad was making regular repayments until unexpectedly, a member of his immediate family had to undergo a serious and expensive surgery, costing Rs. 10.5Lc. Prasad tried to gather the money by applying for a top up loan of Rs. 8Lc. However, he was denied the same and was informed that he can only be given a top up of Rs. 5Lc even though he was eligible for the entire top up request. Prasad gathered the entire amount required for the surgery by borrowing some money from a relative and charged the rest on to his credit card.

He approached an HFC lender for a loan transfer and top-up loan. For this process, Prasad would have to pay processing fees. To his relief, the HFC agreed to pay off all his debts and sanction a total loan of Rs. 25Lc.

Before we tell you what happened next, let us explain why Prasad's case is special. After he bought his home, Prasad partitioned it off into two parts. He registered the two parts in different names, effectively making it two separate houses. For the disbursement of the loan, the HFC asked Prasad to submit the property documents of his second home in addition to his own home's property documents. Since Prasad had already handed over his own property documents, he did not want to mortgage the other house as well. He refused to give the documents, and at the last stage, they cancelled his loan!

Pushed by the fact that the interest on the credit card payment was climbing, Prasad decided to transfer his existing loan to yet another lender. This was a dire situation for Prasad as his credit card interest was steadily increasing and he had also paid a sizeable sum to the HFC and the agent as processing fees. To make matters worse, his already low CIBIL score took a bad hit due to his loan being cancelled and he was unable to pay the credit card dues, because of the sizeable amount paid in the form of processing fees. He was in a more troubling position than he had been before.

It was in this stressful situation that Prasad approached SwitchMe for help. Our Home Loan Advisors jumped into action and started studying all his available options. They spoke with multiple lenders and then zeroed in on LIC Housing Finance Corporation for transferring his loan. While no one was willing to even consider his loan transfer application, LIC paid off his 12Lc loan with IndiaBulls, Rs. 1.5Lc fee to the HFC referred to earlier, Rs. 3.90Lc credit card debt and Rs. 5Lc that he had borrowed from his relative, a sum of nearly Rs. 25Lc!

All's well and that ends well right? There's more!

LIC HFL reduced Prasad's interest rate on the original loan from 12.78% to 9.60% and charged him only 11.78% on his top-up loan.

An elated Prasad says, 'You guys came and literally saved me!'

Prasad hadn't expected this in his wildest dreams and SwitchMe's Home Loan Advisors went the extra mile to make it happen. They took it upon themselves to solve his problems urgently and his loan switching procedure was completed in just one month. The swift and decisive action taken by SwitchMe helped Prasad secure his future and took a huge burden off his shoulders.

Has this ever happened to you?

You're getting ready in the morning and you put on a pair of jeans that you haven't worn in a long time. You casually put a hand in the pocket and voila! out comes a 100 rupee note. It's such an exciting feeling to discover money when you least expect it. Now try imagining how you would feel if out of the blue, you discovered Rs. 5,53,500 in your pocket! Surreal as it sounds, that's what happened to Sunil Kumar when he signed up with SwitchMe for a free home loan evaluation.

Sunil had taken a home loan for a property in Kalyan and in January 2015, he had an outstanding balance of Rs. 12,95,500. He had taken the loan from Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL) and he was being charged an interest rate of 11.86%. With a remaining tenure of 16 years, his interest amount would be very high.

Sunil was facing a lot of issues with DHFL and so he decided to transfer his loan to another bank. He hired an independent agent but unfortunately for him, the agent wasn't a reliable one. He took Sunil's money and did not deliver on his promise of switching the loan. And so, when Sunil came to SwitchMe for help, he was still stuck with the hassles of DHFL and on top of that, he had a deep mistrust towards financial service providers.

Our Home Loan Advisor Abhishek, thoroughly explained the SwitchMe process and gained Sunil's trust after which he initiated the loan transfer process. After studying Sunil's details, Abhishek recommended that the loan be transferred to State Bank of India since it was offering an interest rate of 9.85%. The new interest rate would reduce Sunil’s loan tenure by 46 months, saving him a total of Rs. 5.50Lc! As luck would have it, our HLA found that Sunil had all the documents necessary to transfer his loan and the transfer was completed in just 2 weeks.

There are many others like Sunil who are stuck with a bad loan but delay getting it transferred. Once the home loan enters the floating-rate period, some lenders increase the interest rate due to which the EMI suddenly increases putting a great strain on the monthly finances. There is a constant struggle to juggle expenses like income tax, school fees, bills etc and an inflated EMI can be too much to handle. In cases like these, you should always transfer the loan as soon as possible.

Today, Sunil Kumar feels secure about his future finances. He says, 'SwitchMe has worked very genuinely and I know I will reap the benefits in the long run. It has reduced my headache since I was stuck with DHFL for a long time'.