@ underweight, you may not consider this, but am seconding it.

Tell your friend not to take the loan. Real estate as an investment option will drop though for the high end market segment up is the way to go & with 2 mili that's a market off his/her radar. Reasons being inflation has watered down the 'ma plot' middle class's disposable income tremendously & most properties are indeed over-valued thus wait for a drop.
The stock market has not yet bottomed out & we might see the index go down to around 3200-3000 before anything good happens.
As one guy has advised, tell your friend to use his 'repayment' money to invest in short term treasuries. Minimum required to invest in a Tbill is 100k, he/she can be going for the 91 day paper which will ensure capital preservation, some sort of liquity in the sense that the cash is not held for long & constant maturity if he does it every month in the next 3 months & months thereafter continously & a little income (the last's auction's pricing was 97.637 per every 100). The above will ensure he does not incur interest exp, preserves capital while accumulating at the same time & earn income while awaiting for the market to stabilize.

@erifloss, what do you mean by market stabilising? Is it when it hits rock bottom? I think the guy has a clear plan: pick some stocks at a discount today and sell off when the bear leaves. I wouldnt advise him to wait for abnormal rise though. He should aim at moderate returns per share

as tempting as it may seem, i wouldnt put a loan at the NSE. If the index gets to below 2800 (highly improbable) I would consider it but even then it wouldnt for such an insane amount as 2M. Depends on how long he ll be investing for. If he s lucky, he may be the happiest guy on wazua for a long time