Published: 15-03-2021

Though a week past 8th March 2021, the essence of #IWD 2021 has not yet faded away. Nature has blessed the womenfolk with multi-tasking abilities. Primarily among which, the natural maternal instinct with which she nurtures the household and nourishes its members has remained a debatable topic for ages now. Gone are the days when her role was restricted to being a ‘housewife’. This century has coined the term ‘homemaker’, which makes it a gender-neutral role thus liberating this gender from the imposed restrictions enabling her to step out of the homebound threshold.

The ‘sheroes’ of the 21st century have made their mark across all walks of life. The skyrocketed financial independence has enabled them to make decisions about the real-estate sector. Be it for end-use or investment purposes, women have established that borrowing capacity is no more gender-dependent. On the contrary, they have emerged out as better borrowers encompassing a variety of factors like repayment capacity, lower loan default rates, and smart decision-makers, thus saving the financial institutions from the bane of Non-performing assets.

The Home-loan market has seen an increasing trend in recent times. Though the pandemic affected every aspect of the year 2020, it did witness a brighter side of 5% growth in the number of women home loan borrowers. Modern-day women believe strongly in investing in real estate, so much so that this number has reached 62%. Further, this trend is not only restricted to either pattern of end-use or investment, rather a blend of both with a whopping 82% for former and 18% for the latter.

An encouraging chunk of over 70% women borrowers believes this to be a great time for real estate investment. The share of women borrowers for home-loan was on the higher side when it comes to volume as compared to the men-counterpart during Dec-2019 to December 2020. Even the financial crunch of the pandemic-hit financial year 2020-21 could not deter the decision of opting for a home loan and thus enhancing this number to an encouraging 31-32 percent in the initial 9-10 months.

A bunch of factors has led to the rapid improvement of the above numbers. Primarily important being the reduction of 5 basis points in the interest rate in the loans where ‘she’ is the first applicant. Even though at the first glance, it seems very minuscule a factor, it does create a significant difference especially when the loan tenure is 15-20 years and above. The next noteworthy factor is the stamp duty, which despite varying from state to state lowers the registration charges where the property is registered in ‘her’ name.

Government schemes like Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (announced in 2015) as per which it is obligatory to make a woman the co-owner of a property, Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (facilitating a subsidy of 3-4 percent in the interest rate) have also contributed significantly to encourage women home-loan borrowing. This kind of scheme not only empowers the middle-income group but also strengthens the lower income group and other financially challenged groups.

Financial independence, decision-making capacity both in household and investment matters, lower interest rates, reduced stamp duty charges, a plethora of ready-to-move-in options, and lowering of property prices by the developers have altogether transformed the ‘home-maker to today’s home-buyer.

Sources

• https://bfsi.economictimes.indiatimes.com/tag/crif+high+mark
• https://bfsi.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/banking/more-women-borrowed-personal-loans-in-pandemic-report/81341732
• https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/personal-finance/how-women-can-make-the-most-of-lower-rates-on-home-loans-and-stamp-duties-6618041.html