Women now more keen to own a house

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The Covid-19 pandemic has affected every aspect of our lives. Women had to deal with added responsibilities and new challenges to their work/life arrangements. Working women had not seen this disruption before. But many rose up to this challenge and juggled between their work and personal commitments efficiently. Be it daily house hold chores, office commitments, online schools of their kids, etc.

Even as the Covid-19 pandemic took a toll on our personal lives and on the economy, it has acted as a catalyst for digital transformation across businesses. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital path for most of the processes.

The BFSI sector in which we operate has seen a major uptick in digital adoption. With many corporates adopting technology at faster pace, it has allowed their employees to work from home/anywhere amid this Covid-19 pandemic. This has come as a boon as it has allowed more women especially working mothers to stay in workforce especially women from in the IT Industry.

With work from home model here to stay, women from smaller towns who do not wish to shift to bigger cities for work will have more opportunities. This will also lead to some cost rationalisation for both employees and the corporates. It will also help the untapped talent in smaller towns to come to the fore. Going forward, we will see more corporates significantly accelerating towards digitisation and redefining the overall business landscape.

Talking about financial independence, as women in the country are becoming financially independent, they are also weighing in on big decisions of life like purchasing a house for their family. In the housing sector where I operate, the biggest advantage of buying a house as a single woman is the sense of security, stability and ownership one gets from having one’s own place.

For instance, at HDFC, in order to encourage more women to become homeowners, we have a product for women home buyers called ‘Women Power’ under which we offer lower interest rates by 5 bps to women borrowers. This provides some savings over the tenure of the loan and also ensures that women’s have a stake in the property as their names are registered on these respective properties.

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we are offering a special flat processing fee of Rs 1,500 plus taxes to all Salaried Women Applicants/Co-Applicants on 8th, 9th and 10th March 2021. Also for FY20, of the total loans approved, 40% were to women customers. We have seen a 15% rise in women enquiring for home loans during these pandemic times.

Today, home loan benefits are multi-fold for women who want to buy a house as the government and financial institutions are taking various steps to incentivise women to buy a house. Various states are offering lower stamp duty if the property is registered in women’s name and under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), the government has made it mandatory that property bought under the scheme, must be registered in the name of at least one woman in the household in Economically Weaker Section and Low Income Group category. One can expect a subsidy under this scheme between Rs. 2.30 lakh to Rs. 2.67 lakh. These loans ensure that women’s property rights are recognised and protected as their names are registered on their respective properties.

Women today have a clear path to home ownership and with lowest ever interest rates, stable property prices, reduction in stamp duty by some states and with fiscal benefits and concessions under the CLSS schemes, they can work their way to their dream home with ease.

(The writer is Managing Director, HDFC Ltd. Views expressed are personal)