Mortgage broking articles & tips

Things to Do Before Buying a Home

There are few things more thrilling than buying a home of your own for the very first time. Having a decent savings or down payment on the home is just a small part of the process. Make sure you have all of your bases covered and a solid idea of what to expect during your journey of becoming a proud homeowner. So just what should you know about how...

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RBA Rate Decision – June 2015

Hello, today the Governor and the Reserve Board met and they've kept interest rates on hold. Now this was widely anticipated. The facts are, at 2% cash rate, it is at historically low level and if we were to actually move rates further down which we do have capacity to do if you look at the minutes for May 2015 Cash Rate. They are saying that we...

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How to Use Investment Property to Pay Off your Home in 10 years

Owning your own home is something many of us aspire to, despite claims that home ownership is overrated. But let's face it, most of us will carry our mortgage for at least 25 years before we can get rid of it. Turn out you don't have to. In this Game Plan by Your Investment Property Magazine, Ben Kingsley and other experts lay out practical strateg...

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RBA Rate Decision – May 2015

Today the Reserve Governor and the Board met and they've dropped interest rate once again to 2%. So following the February rate cut, they've followed it up with a May rate cut. Now the reason behind that is simply the spare capacity that we are still seeing in the economy. They've made a judgement call, even before we see the May 2015 budget ...

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When Is the Best Time to Refinance Your Loan?

You’ve bought or invested in a home and are making regular mortgage payments. What happens when you want to adjust your repayment plan? Perhaps a step up in your salary has given you additional resources to pay off your balance in less time. Maybe an outside hardship requires you to refinance in order to improve your cash reserves or your loan mi...

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Is Now the Right Time to be Fixing your Loan?

So is now the right time to be fixing your home loan? One thing that I want to talk about today is to try and explain to you how fixed rates works versus how variable rates works. The first part of this story is, variable rates which is obviously the rates that we see changing when the RBA does their cash rate decision is what we set those variab...

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Different Types of Property Loans and Why Interest Rate Is NOT King 

When purchasing a property in Australia, there are a number of mortgage loan options available. Each has its different benefits such as low interest rates or higher borrowing power, as examples some require principal and interest repayment while others offer interest only terms, while others allow for smaller payments. The best loan will depend on ...

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RBA Rate Decision – April 2015

Today the Reserve Governor and the Board met and they've kept interest rates on hold for the April 2015 board meeting. That has kept the cash rate at 2.25%. Now, why had they kept the rate on hold? Well the reasons come down to a few things. To begin with, they've probably seen some early signs on the economy starting to pick up. Those early ...

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What could go Wrong at Unconditional?

A couple of things that could go wrong once a contract proceeds unconditionally is the finance. The Finance may not have been in place so there might be a couple of special conditions that the bank imposes that the clients weren't aware of at the time. Examples could be, they require you to pay out of Visa cards prior to settlement just to bring ...

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Three Simple Tips to Keep a Good Credit Rating

Gaining and maintaining good credit is one of the most important things a person can do for themselves. Credit is something that is often confusing to people who are looking to start building their credit and a daily necessity to those that have an established history. Following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), Australia is now using a system wh...

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What Happens Once the Contract Proceeds Unconditionally?

Once the Contract proceeds unconditionally, we know that our clients got their finance approved or an approval is in place and we now have a settlement date that we must work towards. So the next step for us is we contact the Mortgage Broker or the Banker and provide them with a range of documents we believe they will need to provide to the banks...

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RBA Rate Decision – March 2015

Today the Reserve Bank of Australia decides to keep rates on hold after dropping rates by 25 basis points last month. Now looking at the Board Meeting minutes from last month, it was a bit of a flip of the coin whether they were going to drop rates in February or potentially wait until March. Ultimately, we all know the outcome of that. They d...

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RBA Interest Rate Cut

Anchor: For the first time in 18 months, RBA has reduced the cash rate by 25 basis points. That's a quarter of a percent for you and I. The move was design to lower the exchange rate and offset declines in key commodity prices. However many are wondering how the 2015 Australian Property Market will react. Bryce Holdaway is a partner in Empower W...

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