RCBC Home Loan 6/2026

Hello all. Been lurking around here for some time whilst going through our own home loan journey. Posts here were insightful and have provided some guidance so I thank you all for that and offer our own experience.

Approved for 15M, 30 years, 8.25% (down from 8.5% for Hexagon under 1M ADB) for 10 years. Monthly amortization including FI of ~2,700 is approximately 115k. Bank charges were estimated at 3% but in the end we paid up about 1.4% of the loan amount.

MRI is through SunLife Grepa, though we briefly tried to pursue other options. All in term insurance, 5-year renewable, amounting to a 43k annual premium. We were advised that after the first year we could opt for semi-annual or quarterly payment collections. Grepa also offered hybrid options between term and other products to cover the whole 15M, but since we have a handful of other policies and investment vehicles already, we decided to just keep this cost down.

Among our top considerations were to have as stable a rate for as long as possible and to retain as much flexibility with our funds. Lower our monthly dues and send the extra straight to principal, which RCBC allows.

After hearing stories of interest jumping to 11% and up from 7-8%, we thought to lock that lower figure in for as long as possible. The other options were 7.5% for 1 and 3 years, and 8% for 5; all less .25% for Hexagon <1M ADB. The 7-year fixing option was removed in the last rate update. These showed a jump of 1.5% or so from a promo rate when we first inquired in April.

As for the timeline, first inquired in late April and they were ready to approve within 3-4ish weeks. The only reason we took it all the way to end of June was because we tried to give the other banks a chance to potentially provide better offers or at least leverage for negotiations. We inquired with BPI since we had history and accounts with them, and kept reading they offered the best rates. Metrobank since they're the developer's go-to bank. We inquired with all three within the same week.

MB took their time and we were about 85% of the way done with the process by the time we decided to ultimately go with RCBC. Theirs was a much less seamless credit investigation process. Multiple requests for the same COE I kept sending, and even then they still bothered my employer. Their investigator also kept trying to visit at the condo to verify our address, failing to coordinate schedules or give notice (they missed us twice). All that trouble for rates no more competitive than RCBC's even without the Hexagon incentive. "Special" rates June: 6.88%-1yr, 7.25%-2, 7.5%-3, 7.75%-4, 8%-5, no 7- or 10-year options.

Hit a wall with BPI relatively early in the process; they said the bank was still appraising the property with the developer and that they could not move on with our application. They offered nothing in terms of projected timelines or progress updates after our follow-up emails.

Back to the MRI. We were always under the impression that we could elect our own life insurance policies for them to appraise and use in lieu of their MRI products. So when we showed up for the loan docu signing and the Grepa agent was there waiting for us to sign their papers too, we were somewhat thrown off. Maybe we'd have felt better/more prepared if they advised us of our options, at least send us their proposals for review, ahead of time instead of the inadvertent blindsiding that occurred. Anyway, asked for a couple days to review our options with other insurance companies, got in touch with our contacts and came up with a shortlist of policies that were competitive to Grepa's. In that time I also came across a post here that mentioned a contestability period criteria, that RCBC would not accept policies less than 2yrs old. So I brought this up to our Loan Specialist and asked for the bank's guidelines in determining acceptable policies. We were basically told that for client-bank relations and after a history of clients electing difficult-to-claim policies, or not renewing the insurance, the bank had to insist we go with their accredited partner, Grepa. No acknowledgement of the contestability period or any answer to our questions about criteria. We asked for adjustments on their proposal and ended up with the term insurance mentioned above which was competitive with what our contacts came up with so we gave the okay.

Overall, our experience with RCBC was pretty good. Partner and I kept having a consistently good experience with all the people we dealt with from the bank. From the time I opened an account a year ago, all the way to the approval of this home loan. Wasn't a perfect ride but it was as seamless as one could reasonably hope for, especially in contrast to MB and BPI. And throughout all that, even with promo rates, RCBC's were always on par or better especially after the Hexagon incentives.