Empower Blog Serviceability

Future of Mortgage Lending in Australia : Risk Profiling and Pricing

Hi Ben Kingsley here, I just want to talk to you about what's going to be the future of mortgage lending here in Australia. Now, before we talk about the future, let's think about what happened in the past. In the past, we used to see mortgages that are like this. We had standard variable rates, and those standard variable rates were the main rates...

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What do the Banks look for when Lending Money?

So you are thinking about actually getting a loan? What is it that the Banks are going to be looking for in terms of being able to lend you money for a mortgage? There's actually 5Cs that allow them to do that. Character, Capacity, Conditions, Collateral and Common Sense. So let's explore all five! The first one is Character. When they are talki...

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How much Money can you borrow?

So how much money can I borrow? It's a question we all ask ourselves from time to time and it's a good question to ask and from a Lender's point of view it's a question around serviceability. So when they're talking about serviceability they're actually saying that here's the household income coming in, here's the expenditure that we've got associa...

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What Contractors and Self Employed Borrowers Need to Know

Borrowing money as a contractor for self employed person is not as straight forward as borrowing money when you are a PAYG employee.  In fact the levels of lending policy extremes when comparing PAYG and self employed or contractors is great. At one extreme end, PAYG employees can seek to secure a Home loan with some lenders as early as getting...

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What does AFL, NRL and Mortgages Have in Common?

We love our sports; all the competitiveness and excitement that comes with it.  Have you ever wondered if the same spirit of sportsmanship also applies to scoring a good mortgage? Over the weekend we have seen the two major sporting codes Grand Finals.  These sporting contests are all about making ground on your opposition and putting scoreboa...

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