Property Investment Strategy for Husband and Wife on Housing Loan

For young married couple who want to maximize their credit ratings to get more housing loans and if you are just about started to do so, here is some key points to be taken into consideration:

1. Individual Savings / Fixed Deposit Account
Avoid joint account. Bank feels uncomfortable with money that you do not have full ownership on it. So, get yourself and your spouse a savings account, respectively. This should be practiced since day one. Bank wants to see you do have the habit of saving.

Same for fixed deposit account (FD), avoid joint account, if possible. Bank likes to see your FD certificates. In fact, that is the money banks get it from us to make more money for themselves by lending back to us as personal loan, business loan, student loan and etc at higher interest rates.

2. Individual Credit Card
Husband and wife should have their own credit card, respectively. It is good to start building a positive credit report via credit card since most of the people able to get one.

Bear in mind, banks always like to lend money to good paymaster. They want to know will you pay them back on time or not. Therefore, your payment patterns on credit card and others loan is an important guideline for them to judge you.

You have no way to runaway, because all the loans and credit cards’ payment history is shown in your CCRIS report (Central Credit Reference Information System) from Bank Negara Malaysia.

However, owning many credit cards doesn’t mean you are financially strong; on the contrary, the total credit limit of all the credit cards will affect your maximum housing loan limit. Take note.

3. Individual Investment Account
If possible, start investing as soon as you start earning. You may start from low capital investment like unit trust and go for regular investment plan, say investing RM200/month regularly and increase the amount over the years. Amount wise, say between 5-8% of your salary. Personally, public mutual fund is a good option.

Previously, I started to invest in unit trust regularly was mainly as kind of force savings for myself and I’m still continuing it until today. But now it has ‘accidentally’ became a plus point for me to secure a loan with better interest rates (as been told by a mortgage officer). In fact, I feel that investing money in shares market make more sense for me now.

Again, avoid joint account, if possible.

Another thing I want to highlight here is do not bank-in the rental collected from tenant to your spouse’s savings account or joint account because bank will not going to recognize it as your income.