Once you resolve to avail a mortgage, the immediate thing that tempests your head is choosing between fixed and floating rate of interest. It is easy to get stuck at this stage if you are not financially trained.
Usually, when news media splashes reports on banks raising housing loan interest rates in and their affect on Monthly Installments, you may take for granted that it is better to opt for fixed home loan rates. In fact, your banker may also propose you to go for the same.
Now ideally as it should be, we take for granted that once you choose fixed rate plan for yourself the rate of interest will remain unaltered for the entire period you have fixed the interest rate for irrespective of any incidental increase in the same. But in reality this is not necessarily the case.
Here we demystify the nature of fixed interest rate housing loan transaction for you so that you can make an knowledgeable decision over the subject.
* Check the small print of a loan. The bank has the right to serve you 30 or 60-days notice that it intends to increase its rates.
* The bank’s first-year rates are binding on the bank only for that short period of 1 or 2 months. The 2nd-year home loan rates are not binding at all. Neither are the bank’s 3rd-year loan rates.
* Force Majeure Clause
So, while you read your mortgage contract, you can spot clauses like this:
“Provided further that from time to time, the bank may in its sole discretion alter the rate of interest suitably and prospectively on account of change in the internal policies or if unforeseen or extraordinary changes in the money market conditions take place during the period of the agreement.”
This is called Force Majeure Clause that enables the lender to undertake appropriate alterations in the interest rates on home loans they approve to their borrowers.
So remember to look at refinancing every couple of years so that you do not pay too much. If you select a good mortgage broker company you can save a lot of money over the life of your mortgage and in almost all cases the consultation cost is free.
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