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RBA Cash Rate Decision – December 2018

On this first Tuesday of December the Reserve Governor and the Board met as we enter the festive season, and they kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5%. I will come back to what's happening in the domestic economy, but first of all I want to talk more broadly about what's happening in the global economy. Most namely the biggest story of the last six...

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5 Golden Tips for getting Finance in this Changing Landscape

Today I want to talk to you about some tips on getting finance in the current environment because we know that the landscape has changed with APRA intervening 12 – 18 months ago to try and take some heat out of the property market. But it's still a very good time to be playing the long game and buying really great properties in the marketplace...

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When you should and should not consider Interest Only Lending?

There's a lot of media noise out there at the moment around interest-only lending, so I thought it's important in this How To Session we talk about why we would and why we wouldn't use interest only lending options.   So I want to start with why we wouldn't use interest only lending. Now, it's logical when you think about it — but w...

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What’s APRA’s Next Move?

In this How-To Session we're going to explore what the potential move from APRA might be after the macro-prudential regulations they introduced in late 2014. Firstly, who is APRA? APRA stands for the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority, and their job is to regulate the lenders who lend money out into the marketplace. Now, when you've go...

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What is a Family Pledge or Guarantor Loan?

What is a family pledge or guarantor loan? Well in simple terms, what we are saying is that parents or a family member can put up security to help a child buy a property. Now, why is this needed? In Australia, we do know that in the bigger cities, property prices are increasing more and more. And as they increase, it is becoming harder for the chil...

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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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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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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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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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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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