I have taken a SBI Maxgain home loan of 40 lakh with EMI of around 50,000 per month for 17 years. Even after 6 years of paying EMI, my principal has hardly reduced by Rs 2,00,000 after paying EMI of around 36 lakh for last 6 years. What is the reason that my EMI is not reducing the principal amount of my Home Loan? Do you have any excel sheet to evaluate by when my loan will be paid fully?
Ans: The EMI you pay every month is made up of two components: payment towards principal and payment towards interest.
In the beginning of your loan repayment, the majority of your EMI goes towards paying off the interest amount as you observed. However, over time as you pay off more principal, gradually more and more of your EMI payment starts going towards principal repayment and less for interest.
You can ask your lender for an Amortisation Table to properly track your payments and the break up therein.
If you want to make a bigger impact on your principal balance, you should start making regular prepayments.
Prepayment is an amount paid over and above the EMI amount that is deducted directly from the principal due. By reducing the principal amount, regular prepayment ensures that you pay back your principal due before the loan agreement thereby closing your loan early and saving thousands of rupees in interest outflows.