Another public sector lender, Bank of India, entered the home loan rate war by offering 8 percent fixed rate for the first two years. Prior this banking giants like SBI and HDFC introduced such offers.

"BoI is planning to offer the 8% fixed rate for loans upto Rs30 lakh and is expected to come with an announcement by end of this month," BoI's executive director B.A. Prabhakar said.

He said that the bank was expected to announce this offer by the end of that month and the offer would apply to loans up to Rs. 30 lakh.

Prabhakar added that after the offer period the rates would be computed on a floating basis according to the then benchmark prime lending rate.

With this bank of India would be joining the league of other leading banks in the country such as State bank of India, Kotak, IDBI and housing finance company, housing finance and development corporation (HDFC).

This will increase the competition among the players who want to attract greater number of home buyers.

A week back state-owned IDBI Bank introduced a home loan scheme offering 8.25 percent fixed rate for all its new loans till March 2012. The offer is applicable to all new home-loan customers applying on or before March 31, 2010, and taking a part or full disbursement during the offer period.