The last fiscal had seen the country's largest lender State Bank of India taking lead in the housing finance business thereby putting behind housing finance major, HDFC.

With the coming of the new financial year, HDFC is expected to again take lead in this domain unless SBI prices its home loans lower than the former, say analysts.

In the last fiscal, the overall home loan business of SBI stood at Rs86,769 crore while that of HDFC lay at Rs85,649 crore.

"We expect loan growth to be in line with the industry. It won't go above industry levels, but it won't fall either," said Vaibhav Agarwal, vice-president (research), Angel Broking.

"The home loan market, as such, is seeing a slowdown. Moreover, SBI has raised interest rates. This will affect its portfolio. We don't think it (SBI) will be able to sustain the growth that it has shown in the past," said another Mumbai based analyst.

"SBI might have a higher reach, but look at the paper work involved in taking a home loan from them. They got a higher portfolio only because of their teaser scheme," says Suresh Sadagopan, who runs Ladder 7 Financial Advisory Services.