Dream homes still a dream

Don't be fooled if you earn well, the tricks of property trade are still tough. With several policies framed by the government and various lucrative offers pertaining to loan interest by banks, owning a home still remains a distant dream for Gen Y. There's no check over the steep rise in property prices, making it complicated to land a doable deal for a home. Even though there is a competitive market and people are earning handsomely, getting a home loan sanctioned about five to seven years ago was a far easier affair than now. Back then, the bank trusted you much more. Blame it on the recession or government apathy towards monitoring 'reality' costs.

Nothing can narrate this better than my personal experience. It started five years back, when my brother joined his first dream job. We started fantasising about a house of our own, without knowing the fact that our seemingly satisfactory salaries wouldn't be enough. So we came face to face with the 'fact' in the market, which taught us to compromise in all respectsu00a0-- house quality and ROI (rate of Interest)u00a0-- but thankfully, there was not much paperwork at that time.

Bravely, we took a loan with a salary that was just approaching five figures. The next five years of our journey brought both of us to a respectable position in career, along with decent appraisals. In that period, we paid almost a similar amount of loan figures. Then, banks made people a scapegoat on the pretext of 'recession'.

These five years definitely proved to be a turbulent time for industries as well as consumers and employees, and everybody wanted to sail through this tough time smoothly. But there could be no better opportunity for banks to jump smart.

Since we took the loan on floating interest; it has grown from 7.77% to 11.50%. When it appeared to be a sunny day, we started dreaming of a bigger house and a transfer of our existing loan from higher to lower interest rate (known as 'balance transfer' in bank jargon).

But we hadn't learned the latest lessons. Transferring a loan with five years of clean history with a handsome salary and an appreciated house value is more difficult than obtaining a fresh loan. We approached a leading public sector bank thinking they once served the first President of India, Laureate Homi Babha and Rabindranath Tagore, and they are currently "serving future talent", so the chances of cheating were low and value for money more. We were wrong. Or dreaming. It is not so easy. With a current salary package of more than the loan amount, and with the house property worth half a crore and clubbed income of a brother whose package, again, matches the loan amount, in addition to more assets worth the loan request, the bank still seeks a guarantor for Rs 7.56 lakh. Even though they're the ones reaping all profit, we're meant to feel weak and wanting. And build castles in the air.

Amit Kumar is Chief Reporter, MiD DAY, Delhi