Transferring home loan balance can be tricky: All you need to know

It's not just interest rate difference that matters. There are other sundry costs, and the timing is important

Deepak Parekh, chairman of India's biggest housing finance company, Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC), recently lamented that poaching of customers by lenders had significantly increased the turnover rate within the industry. And he is right. Poaching customers has become a big business.  

Most customers are used to multiple calls from telemarketers of lenders who claim to offer significantly better rates, and sometimes, it may make sense to shift. But you need to do the numbers carefully, especially when you are shifting a long-term loan like a housing loan because you will see both sides of the interest rate cycle during the