Date:11/01/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/11/stories/2009011159950400.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Property fair opens

Staff Reporter

— Photo: M.Karunakaran

Chief General Manager of SBI (LHO) J.Chandrasekaran handing over a home loan sanction letter to a customer at a property fair organised by the bank in Chennai on Saturday.

CHENNAI: With the recruitment of 300 home loan counsellors and 25 customer relationship executives, the State Bank of India will focus more on home loan customers, according to Chief General Manager of SBI (LHO-Chennai) J. Chandrasekaran.

“Despite the slowdown, there is a latent demand for home loans,” he said, inaugurating a 3-day property fair organised by the bank at Mayor Chettiar Ramanathan Centre in R.A. Puram on Saturday. The bank is taking steps to boost disbursal of home loans as the growth of the housing sector is crucial for the economy of the nation, he added.

The market share of SBI in home loans is 20 per cent. The past few months witnessed a slowdown of demand in home loans because of the global economic crisis, said Mr. Chandrasekaran.

The average ticket size had come down in the past few months, said Mr. Karthikeyan, Assistant General Manager, Home Loans, State Bank of India.

Officials said that there was a general bias towards lower end housing. They added there was no discernible trend yet. The customers were waiting for a correction, but many builders were still reluctant to reduce the price. So we have taken the initiative of reducing the interest rates by 0.5 per cent for home loans.

They said that the processing fee had been reduced to 0.25 per cent. The margin requirement had also been reduced to 15 per cent, said Mr. Chandrasekaran.