Buying a house is an investment for life. When we were looking out to buy a flat in Bengaluru, we looked at many factors – Reputation of the builder, locality of the apartment, amenities, safety, and the distance from various important locations. Wait! Did I miss a very important factor? 🙂 Yes, I did miss the first and foremost thing that we look into while purchasing any property – Cost of the house vis-a-vis budget.

Buying a house is one of the biggest decisions in your life. Depending on the factors mentioned above, we shortlisted a couple of properties from reputed builders; had a look at their feedback on the internet and visited a couple of properties to have a look at the demo flat. Along with the facilities available, we also checked if the CRM team was pro-active in email communications and whether they are customer-friendly.

Raising capital to reduce loan burden

Before we had shortlisted the property and decided to purchase flat with a reputed builder, we had a look at factors like:

• How much down-payment should pay to the builder?
• Which banks offer loan at a lower interest rate?
• Can we borrow some money from Family, Friends and well-wishers?

Once you have calculated the total amount of how much you have in-hand, than you should visit a reputed loan financer.

Choosing Right Home Loan

When it comes to Home Loans, apart from the Public Sector banks, you also have the option of Private Sector Banks. You need to look into options like flexible interest rates, options of reduced interest for female borrowers (if she is the first owner of the property), ease of loan process, pre-payment charges, and early closing charges.

Paper Work, more Paper Work

Applying for loan is just the beginning of the loan process. The real fun starts with the submission of the documents – Salary Slip, Statement of Bank Account/Pass Book for last six months, Residence Proof, ID Proof, Personal Assets and Liabilities statement etc. These documents are only for the Loan applicant and as we had rightly guessed, we had to frequently visit the bank since there used to be some minor mistakes in the papers and in time, the bank became our second home 🙁

The entire loan approval process took couple of months after which we could breathe a sigh of relief!! There is one thing that we could not figure out. Home Loan providers never take into account about the ambitions of the borrower, his capability to repay the loan from income coming from other sources. We understood that just submitting the salary documents does not indicate your loan eligibility and loan repayment capability.

Time to Know Your Worth

Though I was done with my loan formalities, when this matter was being discussed with friends; they pointed out the same thing – Banks should take various other factors (apart from normal routine documents) in order to consider whether a person is eligible for a loan or not. This is where the discussion about ‘What is your True Worth’ started. Apart from choosing the right home it is of prime importance to choose the right institution that can provide loan.

It is time to Know your True Worth – http://www.trueworth.co.in and since the words sounded familiar, the discussion swayed in the direction of the Aditya Birla Finance Home Loans. A friend of mine is an engineer but since he has a spirit of entrepreneurship within him, he wanted to tap into the booming taxi industry (likes of Ola, Uber). He has a taxi that he has partnered with Uber and makes a handsome amount of money from it. However, other banks did not accept Uber earning along with his corporate job earning. This was important for him since he required a Loan which was more than his ‘Salary’ eligibility.

He finally approached Aditya Birla Finance Home Loans (ABFHL) after he got good feedback from his friends. It’s important that you know exactly how much you can make as down payment and the amount of loan you require.  This is what they call as knowing your ‘True Worth‘.

Time to Know Your Worth – Unique Proposition

As mentioned earlier, loan approval is a painstaking process. However, ABFHL follows a completely different rule for application and approval. Unlike other financial institutions, they assure you of a loan eligibility which is holistic in nature – they take into account your ambitions to grow and will take cognizance of income from all sources which can be used to repay your loan well in time. This is a win-win situation for both the Financial Institution as well as the Loan Applicant.

Less paper Work (More action, less drama)

The documents that you require for applying for a home loan with ABFHL are:

• Proof of Identity and Address
• Proof of income
• Bank statement (where salary is credited)
• Proof of Income
• Proof of other Income

The loan approval process is also very speedy since there is one representative from ABFHL who would be in touch with you throughout the entire loan process. They have very good Home Loan options that look very promising.

They re-directed us to ‘Know Your Worth’ TVC that made him to look at ABFHL for a home loan. He closed the discussion by mentioning that ‘For many, applying for Home Loan might be a nightmare but for ABFHL customers, applying for Home Loan is a Dream since it gets approved in such a short amount of time’.

As mentioned on Know Your Worth website,

If you are working this hard to buy your dream home, the least we can do is recognize our true worth. Don’t settle for less. Know your true worth and get the home your truly deserve!

It’s about time, You Know Your Worth#TheHomeLoanIDeserve

Few days back, couple of friends were having discussion over lunch about “Savings” and the talk slowly diverted to “Strategies that each one of us uses in order to maximize returns on Savings”. Many of them in the group were ‘Conservative Investors’ and hence they mostly invested their money in PPF, few Mutual Funds, Insurance policies etc. When he was questioned about the same, his clear-cut answer was that – Though returns might be less, at least it is predictable. Most of them agreed to the point since, sometimes being risk-averse (especially if the overall economy is not doing good) is the best thing to do 🙂

However, I follow a different strategy to manage my savings. Along with ‘Less risky investments that provide Fixed returns’, I also play the ‘Risky’ game by investing in Mutual Funds (mostly Equity based investments are more compared to Debt based investments) and Stock Market. Well, I decided to invest in stock market when Satyam Computers (the in-famous company founded by Ramalinga Raju) was latched up in the biggest corporate scandal of our times !!! Due to push from one of my old friend’s (who is active in stock market), I picked up shares at very ‘Low Price’ and the same stock ‘sky-rocketed’ after Mahindra acquired Satyam (which eventually became Mahindra Satyam).

As I understood from that incident, most of the times in stock market we are heavily influenced by the buying decision of our friends, acquaintances etc. Also, many times investing is ‘Emotion Driven’ hence, it becomes necessary to control emotions (be it fear or greed) & investing should not be done on your fear of loosing out 🙂 One of the mantras that I diligently follow is from the famous investor Warren Buffet

The basic ideas of investing are to look at stocks as business, use the market’s fluctuations to your advantage, and seek a margin of safety. That’s what Ben Graham taught us. A hundred years from now they will still be the cornerstones of investing.

When I was looking to invest in some more stocks, there was a company by name of Kushal Tradelink [KTL] that struck my attention. In fact, the strange factor is that this stock was recommended to me by some of my friends (who also invest in stock market). Let’s deep dive into why that stock can be a valued proposition & must to be in your portfolio.

Background

Kushal Tradelink is a closely held private limited company (headquartered in Ahmedabad) and is a major paper products manufacturer as well as paper and agriculture products trader. It was established in the year 2000, which means it is a company that has established it’s foothold in the segment in which they operate. The company has very good financials and a company that is built on strong fundamentals is good pick for your portfolio.

Along with business, they are also involved in lot’s of CSR activities which gives a human touch to business !!

Financials

The promoters of the company have been in business of paper trading since 1965. Kushal Tradelink recorded sales of Rs 200 crore in fiscal 2015, however we could not get information on the bottom-line.

They have contract with Shree Rama News prints & also entered into Rs 250 crore deal with the Adani Enterprise. To top that all, they also have a deal with Bungee India (Fortune 500 company) and serve more than 1500 SME customers across India. Company has three giant paper mills in Gujarat as well as corporate house, wholly owned subsidiary in Singapore and in Ajman [UAE].

Listing details & stock performance

Kushal Tradelink is listed on the BSE (in the B group) and as per my knowledge (and understanding of the market) it is candidate of S&P BSE 500 stocks. Before investing in any stock, we definitely have a look at the previous dividends that the company has offered and it’s performance in the market. Stock of Kushal Tradelink is trading actively with over 10 Lakh shares average daily volume, stock price has risen consistently and has never fall even Rs. 10 from its high price at any point of time.

Also, if you are planning to start investing with 50% amount and are waiting on the sideline which is the tendency of the other investors i.e. to wait for the price to come down so that you can latch on to the shares on lower price. In that case, my suggestion would be that do not wait for that moment since the growth of Kushal Tradelink’s stock is very good and the demand of this stock is much higher as compared to supply (fundamentals of Supply v/s Demand theory). It is like retail concept ‘Offer Valid till Stocks Last’ 🙂

The company has already declared interim dividend twice, 40% in January and 60% in March. For more information about it’s share holding pattern, please visit Kushal Tradelink on BSE To check the performance of Kushal Tradelink on BSE, please check this link The consistent performance definitely gives a big boost to the confidence of the retail investors to invest in Kushal Tradelink 🙂

Retail Investor interest

After interacting with couple of traders in the stock market, we got the information that there has been an increasing retail investor participation after December Quarter in Kushal Tradelink. 7991 retail investors have invested in Kushal Tradelink’s stock (after December Quarter) and after March quarter it rose to 20270 which shows increasing substantial public interest in the company’s stock.

As per the discussion I had with my stock-trader friends, they expect announcement of another dividend from Kushal Tradelink depending on their overall performance.

When I started investing in stock market, I was always told that company’s stock would definitely go-up if the fundamentals of the company are strong !! Same holds good for Kushal Tradelink and considering the excellent performance of the company it definitely falls into my “Hot performing stocks” bucket 🙂

As seen above The stocks are currently trading at Rs 127.60 (rise of 0.87% since previous close) and expect the bull-run to continue for Kushal Tradelink !!

So, do you plan to invest in Kushal Tradelink ? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Disclaimer: Information provided in the article is based on my research and I do not have any holding. Investment in stocks involves huge risk, so consult your financial adviser or do your own analysis before making any investment.