MUMBAI: The country’s largest housing finance company HDFC has seen its average home loan size shrink by nearly Rs 3 lakh to Rs 23.6 lakh for the quarter ended September 2017 as compared to Rs 26.3 lakh in the preceding quarter. This has been attributed to loan growth in the low-cost segment even as the market for high-value property continues to remain sluggish.The company has said that the sharp drop in average loan size was due to the government focus on affordable housing coupled with the fact that home prices have not moved up. Officials said that over the years the average home loan’s size has been gradually moving up. While there have been dips, these have been only for a few thousands and never before has the average loan size fallen by over a lakh.HDFC vice-chairman and MD Keki Mistry said that the drop in average loan value was due to the fact that it was the low-cost homes that were driving loan growth. Mistry pointed out that in the individual segment, loan approvals were up 27% while disbursements were 23% higher than in the corresponding period last year. “The growth has largely been in affordable housing.”The push has come from Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana , which is a credit-linked subsidy scheme for small borrowers. Besides sops for builders, borrowers also get cheaper loans when they buy homes in the affordable segment.According to HDFC, in March 2017, the credit-linked subsidy scheme was amended to include middle-income groups (MIG), in addition to economically weaker sections and low-income groups. This has widened the scope of the scheme.“With RERA ( Real Estate Regulation & Development Act) coming in, some states have become a little slower because the process of getting approvals has been a little time consuming. But I think things are beginning to return to some degree of normalcy. Despite the so-called expected growth due to RERA, we still had 23% growth in individual disbursements.”said Mistry Although it is small loans that are driving growth, the borrowers are not from low-income segment. According to HDFC data, in 2017 the average borrower paid out 3.8 times his annual salary towards a home purchase.A year ago, this was 4.1 times annual income, while a decade back it was 5.1 times annual income.