Yes, you can congratulate me now. I have bought a house, and man was it a herculean task! So as a veteran in searching a house, going for a housing loan and getting everything mostly right, I’m going to write about what can (and most definitely does) go wrong, and how to beat it.

1) Start with finances. If you don’t have the money to make the down payment, delay it for as long as possible. Don’t think that you’ll arrange it someday. Arrange the money now. Earn, borrow, steal or rob, but have it right now. If the house you’re eyeing is unfurnished, account for shiploads of money (usually >10% of the house price itself) or plan to go for another house furnishing loan.

2) Beware of banks. They say that they will give you 85% (or even 90%) of the sale value of the price, what they mean is that they will give you 80% of the market value (which the banks calculate themselves, and is quite lesser than the sale price). Finalize which bank are you going to go forward with, and start the procedure ASAP. It easily takes 3-4 weeks for any sane bank to actually give you the cheque of the remaining amount from the time you approach them for a housing loan.

3) Actually this should have been point # 1, but here it goes: Maintain a good CIBIL score. Remember the credit card you once defaulted? Or the one you thought was extorting money by asking a lot of stupid ‘finance charges’ and decided to shout at the call centre girl to get it settled for half? My friend, you’ve destroyed half your chances to get a housing (or any other) loan. If affects your eligibility more than anything else. Stay clean, pay your credit card bills, don’t have bounced cheques, don’t make settlements with a bank EVER, pay the full amount.

4) Get married. No seriously, being married gives you a host of advantages. Your credibility in the eyes of bank increases. Your loan eligibility increases if your spouse is working. Your CIBIL score is offset by that of your wife, who has religiously paid all her CC bills always, and never let her bank balance drop to zero. Also, she has most probably spent more time in her present company than you have in your present organization

5) Before paying any amount to the seller, figure out whether you are eligible for the loan that you are looking out for. This is the step when you finalize your bank, submit documents for loan application, and manipulate the seller in delaying the token amount payment. The most amount of hurdles occur at this step. Have you been in your present company for less than a year? Problem! Are you asking for a loan whose EMI exceeds half your monthly salary? More problem.
Make sure you have your identity proof, address proof. PAN card, salary slips, bank statements (for all accounts you hold) for a year. Working in a startup doesn’t exactly help your cause.

6) Assuming that you’ve signed the sale agreement (different from a sale deed), and made the down payment of 15% (or whatever percentage) of your house price, now is the time to get everything fixed in your new house. The seller has smelled blood with the few lacs you’ve paid him, and will be willing to fix anything for the remaining. Check all the switches in the house, any trace of seepage, broken tiles, drainage system, your parking lot, any remaining dues. Lots of stuff to check, really. But its important that you do it now, because once you’ve paid the entire amount… most probably the seller will forget that you or the house exist.

7) Go sign the sale deed. Reach your registration office on time, and keep every document ready. Don’t act over smart and just comply. Do whatever you’re told, pay any overheads (yes, another term for bribe) and you’ll be done in a couple of hours. Your banker will keep the original registration documents and give you a photostat. Make sure you don’t give any more docs to the banker than required. Do not, for example hand over your maintenance agreement or your clubhouse membership to him. You’ll need it.

8 ) If you get a vanilla house, with no wood work whatsoever, you need to also get a house improvement loan. Well that’s for some other day, but the only thing I’d suggest is: Plan the amount you’ll need for getting the furniture done, multiply by 1.5. These things are never cheap, and they aren’t only as expensive as you had planned initially.