Your buyers cannot get a home loan. It may not be the buyers.
A developer told us his sales had slowed and his buyers were "not serious". Three of the four files we looked at were perfectly fundable people. The problem was the project, and he did not know it.
The list nobody tells you about
Most banks and housing finance companies maintain an internal list of projects they have already examined and are willing to lend against. The common name for it is the approved project list, or APF — approved project finance.
Getting a project onto that list means the lender's legal and technical teams have looked at the title, the approvals and the plans once, centrally, and cleared them. After that, a buyer's file only has to prove the buyer.
If the project is not on the list, every single buyer's file triggers a fresh legal and technical review of the whole project. That is not a formality. It adds weeks, it asks your buyer for documents you hold rather than documents he holds, and a meaningful share of those files simply die of exhaustion.
What it looks like from the sales office
The symptoms are consistent, and they get misread as buyer quality:
- Buyers who are clearly eligible take six to ten weeks to get sanctioned
- The bank keeps asking for project documents, not buyer documents
- Two buyers with similar income get different answers from different banks
- Bookings convert at the competing project down the road, which is on that bank's list
A buyer comparing two similar flats will take the one where the loan clears in ten days. He will not tell you that is why.
How a project gets on the list
It is an application by the developer, not by the buyer, and it is usually free. Each lender runs its own process, but the pack is broadly the same:
- RERA registration certificate
- Title documents and the title search or legal opinion
- Approved plans and the development permission
- Commencement certificate
- The land revenue record and the chain of ownership
- Promoter's constitution documents — partnership deed, LLP agreement, board resolution
- Project details: units, area statement, completion schedule
The lender's panel advocate reads the title, its technical valuer visits the site, and the project is either listed or it is not. Turnaround varies widely between institutions.
The part developers get wrong
They apply to one bank. Buyers do not all come with the same lender. A project listed with one bank and no one else has solved the problem for a fraction of its buyers. Serious developers apply to several across the public, private and housing-finance categories.
They apply late. The listing is most valuable in the first months of sales, which is exactly when the paperwork tends to be least ready. Applying after sales have slowed means waiting out the review with no momentum.
They assume approval is permanent. Listings lapse, and they are reviewed when a project's completion date moves or its progress filings go stale.
What to do about it
Ask each bank whose customers keep appearing at your sales office whether your project is on their list. It is a direct question and the branch can answer it. If it is not, ask what they need.
The cost is a document pack and some follow-up. The return is that a buyer's loan becomes a ten-day formality rather than a two-month ordeal — and that shows up in your booking numbers, not in a line item you can see.
Who writes this, and what they are not. The Loan Consultant View is written by Kamal Thakkar & Co., a loan consultancy that places files with banks and NBFCs in Ahmedabad every week. We are an intermediary, not a lender. We do not approve, decline or price any loan.
This column is published to inform, not to solicit business. Nothing in it is an offer of finance, an invitation to apply for a loan, or advice on any particular project. Lending norms differ between institutions and change without notice — verify the position for your own case with the bank concerned. Full terms are on our disclaimer page.