One of our first clients, Neetu, recently moved into her new home in Virar. She is certainly our typical customer - a housemaid, who lived in a central Mumbai slum in very poor conditions (small room, poor sanitation, common toilet, no open space, etc) with her husband (a driver), her mother, 3 brothers and a younger sister. She has been wanting to buy her own home (one with clear title and reasonable quality) for some time now and with her husband, could put down the 20% margin on a home purchase from a private developer. The issue was to find a bank to finance the remaining 80%. When we met her, she said she harboured little hope in getting a loan as she had been turned down several times for much smaller loans in the past - because of a lack of documentary support to prove her income. At MHFC, we were convinced not just about her ability to repay the loan (by verifying her income with her employer) but also her willingness (the loan tenor is set at just 5 years evidencing her strong desire to be debt free as early as possible).
Attached are a couple of pictures - one of her old home and one of the new building. Its still a squeeze for 7 adults to be living in a 360 sq ft flat - but Neetu puts this in perspective when she says they used to live in a 150 sq ft room, and hence find the new home very comfortable.
