Over a thousand viewers tuned in to the Bay Suites Facebook page for a Saturday night live talk to speak to a banker and get all their questions on loans and property financing answered.

The show was hosted by Elson Kho from Property Hunter and was sponsored by Datuk Chua Soon Ping from Bay Suites. Their star guest, Alex is an experienced banker and sales manager of a Maybank branch here in Kota Kinabalu.

A week before the live discussion, Property Hunter started gathering questions from the public about loans and banking in real estate. Here are the highlights of the night. You can watch the full episode here.

“I took out a low-interest personal loan for my business. Now I am thinking of buying a home with my personal name. Will the personal loan reduce my loan eligibility even though it was meant for business purpose?”

Alex said that it will affect the new loan. As long as the loan is under his personal name, it will contribute to the total commitments of the new loan, regardless if it is for personal use or for business purposes.

“I am working freelance. Can I easily apply loan to buy a property?”

Non-fixed income workers can still apply for loans, says Alex. There should be adequate supporting documents however to justify to the bank and prove at least 6 months of their income.

“How can I know what’s the value of a loan I can apply based on my income and commitments?”

To answer this question, Alex shared “The 5 C’s of Credit” - character, capacity (cash flow), capital, collateral and condition. These are the main factors property investors should understand to know the value of a loan.

Find out what GDV/GDC means, why the property industry equals to a game of leveraging, if banks are lending right now and more. You can watch the full video here.