By Manish M. Suvarna

Mumbai, Aug 24 (IANS): The rising interest rates scenario in last few months and expectation of further rate hike is expected to impact homebuyers attitude, albeit for the short-term and housing sales too could take a hit, experts believe.

"Just as in the case of falling number of applicants for new home loans, the number of housing sales too could take a hit over the short term," V. Swaminathan, Executive Chairman, Andromeda Loans and Apnapaisa.com, said.

Whenever the central bank hikes the repo rate, the lenders pass on the burden to borrowers in the form of increased interest on housing loans. Due to this most borrowers choose to hold back their decision to apply for a new loans on hope that the central bank will cut the repo rate.

Soon after the current rate hike by the RBI most banks have started increasing their lending rates. Because of this the borrowers having floating rate interest on their loans saw a rise in monthly EMIs.

"Existing borrowers with floating loans will see a hike in their monthly EMIs as these loans are revised in a quarterly fashion, subject to existing conditions. Customers with home loans and loans against property are likely to witness a sharper increase in EMI rates," said Amit Prakash Singh, Chief Business Officer, Urban Money.

Singh further added that for every 1 per cent increase in home loan rates, the EMI for every Rs 1 lakh of home loans is likely to increase by Rs 60-70 per month. It is likely that the current trend of repo rate hikes won't be alive forever and eventually rates will come down if the RBI is successfully able to tame the inflationary pressure.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) increased its repo rate by 50 basis points in August to tame inflation.

In the last three months, RBI has hiked the repo rate by 140 basis points -- in May by 40 bps, 50 bps in July, and 50 bps in August.

This has pushed the home loan rates across all banks, as with the rate hike, banks tend to pass on their burden to the investors to maintain the balance.