Compare and calculate home loan offers

If you are looking for a website that provides comparison of home loans offered by different banks, you may find these two websites useful.

iMoney.my 

This Islamic home loan comparison and sourcing web tool is simple, just
1. Enter the amount you want to borrow, and
2. Enter the tenure of the loan (year)

And you will be able to see a list of banks with essential features of the loans offered, i.e. interest rate, calculated monthly repayment, total interest (profit) paid for the entire tenure of loan and lock-in period. You can click on "Apply Now" button and fill up a simple application form through the website for someone to contact you on your selected home loan.

I like its simplicity. Many users will find that it is easy to use.

Beside home loan comparison (currently focus on Islamic loan only), iMoney has many good financial articles and comparison tools of various financial products, i.e. fixed deposits, credit card, etc.

Loanstreet.com.my

Loanstreet is a website focuses on property loan. Its property loan comparison and sourcing web tool requires users to provide a bit more details, but it also provides more information. Not only you can choose the type of property up front, you can refine the search result with type of rates, i.e. fixed rate or floating rate,  flexi or non-flexi loan, etc.

This is how its loan comparison and sourcing tool works,
1. Enter the type of property, value of property, financing margin and tenure of loan.
2. Refine the result by choosing more options, i.e. type of rates, type of repayment, Islamic or Conventional, Completed or under construction.

The outcome is that you can see a list of bank loans offered by various banks with essential features, i.e. rates, tenure, lock in period, full flexi, etc. You can select offers and click on "Apply Selected Packages" button and fill up a simple application form through the website for someone to contact you on your selected home loan.

I like this tool because it is more delicate in terms of functionality. However, a small group of users with little interest in financial terminology may find it complicated.

It also has many good guides on property loan.

Both websites above are impressive and useful.

Negotiate With Banks

One thing I realised about getting a property loan is that interest rate offered by bank is always negotiable. When you use such comparison tool, you should not feel intimidated by rates listed in the comparison list. You need to contact them to find out more and negotiate if you are interested.

The rate that the bank offers to you usually determined by a few factors:

• Type and locations of property and/ or specific project
• Your credit records kept by Bank Negara Malaysia's Central Credit Reference Information System. (Read more about CCRIS here.)
• Your income level
• Whether there is Mortgage Reducing Term Assurance, MRTA (Read more about MRTA here.)

A good credit history record, high income and a good piece of property that the bank feels comfortable with can help you to reduce your rate by 0.1% - 0.3%.

Other Sources of Home Loan

There are other financial institution that offer home loan, i.e. insurance companies, Malaysia Building Society Berhad (MBSB), KWSP (EPF), Koperasi Loan (a type of personal loan with interest rate lower than housing loan), etc.

As far as I know, home loan offered by insurance companies can be really cheap but with fixed tenure and fixed interest rate. They may not be as flexible (in term of early repayment, advance payment and withdrawal of advance payment) as we need them to be.

Lastly, there is one good article here on avoiding common home loan mistakes.

Other resources:

• Download a home loan planner
• Reduce your existing home loan's interest rate
• Should we repay home loan (and not property loan for rental property) quickly?