Daily Archives: 6 Sep 2009

10 things to note when shopping for a home loan

Posted on 6 Sep 2009 | Comments Off on 10 things to note when shopping for a home loan

Coming up alongside the current property rally is a fierce competition among banks here, eager to sign up homebuyers with attractive and innovative loan packages.

The loan options being dangled are mind-boggling – such as the perennial choice between fixed or floating rate mortgages.

Some packages even come with a deposit interest matching feature where the interest earned can be offset against the mortgage interest.

Two examples are United Overseas Bank’s (UOB) HomePlus and Standard Chartered Bank’s (Stanchart) MortgageOne Sibor.

For instance, MortgageOne Sibor customers earn the same interest rate on two-thirds of their deposit linked to their mortgage as they pay on the loan. The interest earned can offset the mortgage interest.

Customers pay less interest each month, and are able to pay down their loans faster than is the case with a traditional loan package.

Citibank’s Home Saver deal is an index-linked home loan that offers customers one of the widest selections of index tenures in the market, ranging from one month to three years. Customers have the flexibility of switching from one index tenure to another. The indexes used for reference include the Singapore Inter-bank Offered Rate (Sibor). Continue reading →

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Er, what is a caveat?

Posted on 6 Sep 2009 | Comments Off on Er, what is a caveat?

Where do you see this?

In articles, research reports, property websites and legal documents related to property.

What does this mean?

A caveat is a legal document lodged by a person who claims an interest in a property.

For instance, an intending purchaser who has paid a certain percentage of the purchase price to a property owner can lodge a caveat to indicate that he has an interest in the property.

Lodging of caveats is voluntary and there can be a time lag between the purchase date and the lodgement of the caveat.

Why is it important?

It prevents another person from staking a claim on the same property.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority uses caveats to compute its property price indices. Its website has information on private home deals transacted with caveats lodged. Buyers can check the caveats to get an idea of where prices are headed or the latest prices at a development.

So you want to use the term. Just say…

‘I just saw a caveat lodged for a unit at my condo. It’s 20 per cent higher than what I paid last year. I will wait for the market to rise further before I cash out of this investment property.’

Source : Straits Times – 6 Sep 2009

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