Here are my Home Loan results ending month of September 2010.

1st Place (Tiger Bank)

Est Selling Price: 500K +/-
Financing: 90% of Est Selling Price + 5% = Legal Documentation, Formal Valuation Report & MRTA (if any) or 90:10
Valuation: Waived
Interest: BLR -2.3%
MRTA: Waived (covered by life insurance)
Tenure: 38 years.
Monthly instalment: RM 2K +/-
Lock in: 3 years or 3%
Turnaround time: from meeting the officer (submit doc) to actually signing to LO = 1 month or less (within Sep 2010).
Status: Letter of Offer signed in Sep 2010.

2nd Place (Ong Chin Bank Corp)

Est Selling Price: same
Financing 90:10 (same as above)
Valuation: slightly lower but a heck load of difference on downpayment.
Interest: BLR - 2.3% regardless with or without MRTA
Tenure: 25 years
Monthly Instalment: RM 2323
Lock in: 3 years ( ithink)
Turnaround time: on the phone only, never meet the officer. document sent online. Deadline to submit proposal about 2 weeks before end of September 2010 given to come out with LO. Successful. (super efficient officer)
Status: Rejected.

3rd Place (Pubic Bank)

A LOT of horse trading, typical <insert race >bank.
Est Selling Price: same
Financing: initially 85:15, than subsequently 90:10
Valuation: very low!
Interest: BLR-2.3% with MRTA
Tenure: 25 years
Monthly instalment: RM 26xx
Lock in: 3 years (i think)
Turnaround time: from meeting the officer (submit doc) to LO, about 2 weeks.
Status: Rejected.

*** Rejected or Failed due to other reasons ***

4th Place (Hong Kie Bank)

Est Selling Price: same
Financing: 90:10
Valuation: negligible
Interest: BLR-2.3% with/without MRTA
Monthly instalment: RM 27xx (more or less)
Lock in: 5 years (i think)
Tenure: 25 years
Turnaround time: from meeting the officer (submit doc) … Well she was nice and efficient but her bank just couldn’t offer the best deal.
Status: Rejected.

5th Place (United Orang Bank)

More or less same terms and conditions but failed on internal procedure stage. Needed Draft SPA (WTF?)

Deadline given to prepare LO, within 1 week before end of September 2010.

*** in other words too slow or no reply at all ***

No Place (Rahib Hali Baba), (Chakai Igrnorant Malaysia Bank), (I AM Bank), (Ho Leong & Eno Bank [failed merger]).

This post has been edited by aurora97: Oct 4 2010, 09:33 AM

Yup, the whole thing, after going to about 6 banks (maybe more).

I heard (somewhat credible sos) ING's terms are strict and the loan is difficult to obtain, hence didn't even bother about ING in the first place.

Anyway, by than, I would have contemplated about re-financing my house.

The same argument also applies, what if the interest rate falls?

Fix rates is only beneficial one way, that is if interest rates is trending upwards.

Floating rates i.e. BLR - X% offers flexibility but not necessarily cheaper.

Than the final consideration would be:

1. the Lock in Period (3 -5 years?)

2. with or without MRTA. (with MRTA technically if you wanna refinance, you most likely get burnt, hence we took life insurance instead)

thank you for your feedback, obviously no one shirt (or hat) fits everyone, there is a need to weigh the pros and cons rather than taking an advice directly from a stranger. The way you have put to me may require myself to further elaborate my position to you and also to help other forumers to understand what am I trying to point out.

that said, i am merely weighing some of the pros and cons between fix and floating rate but neither am i preaching that either is better against the other. Only through the passage of time say perhaps 30-40 years down the road, we will reliaze the impact of what we had signed up for.

Furthermore, the current financial situation unlike pre-1997 crash, whereby interest rate was up the roof, we are current facing a total different ball game all together. Gold price are at all time high, the echoes of recession through out the globe is still active, people are still losing jobs and homes, there is simply no certainty for anything we do. Back than economy was doing great and Malaysia had tonnes of mega project and oil to splurge, look at us today, the government is scrambling for money from GST, increasing taxes and so forth, dwindling oil reserves, whilst the standard of living throughout Malaysia maintains as it is. Obviously this are not encouraging signs.

With depending on financial standing/circumstances of each individual taken into perspective:

I believe most home buyers (borrowers) aim to achieve a balance between the numerous risk that they encounter be it interest rate, inflation, legal, financial, default and/ or hedging for that matter.

Hence, I dare not say whether floating or fixed rate is a better option, paying higher interest on loan may reduce disposal income but not necessarily a death sentence, if combine correctly with the right mix of lock-ins, MRTA/MLTA and refinancing.