Empower Blog Home Loan

7 Ways to Get your Kids on the Property Ladder Sooner

With the question on affordability always on the mind of those looking to get on the property ladder, Ben Kingsley will share with you seven potential ways to help accelerate your kids dream of property ownership. This presentation at the Melbourne Home Buyer and Property Investor Show will look at ways in which family members can help the Gen X...

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Understanding Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI)

Post the Second World War, Australia transformed itself into ‘The Lucky Country’. We opened our doors to large levels of immigration and we had plenty of land, food, water and great weather that made us attractive for many who were fleeing war torn areas of Europe and alike. It was also through this era that we got our second great tag line of ...

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What are the Costs associated with Buying a Property?

We're about to buy a property! It's an exciting time but we also need to understand the numbers behind acquiring that property. So what are there? Let's use a basically a back-of-the-envelope calculation to help us understand what it's going to cost to buy that property and what sort of loan that we might have to take on that. So let's get our pe...

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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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How can Parents help?

I had a fabulous Christmas party with my Mum's side of the family Christmas just gone. Three exciting things happened. Firstly - I'd pulled together a wonderful negotiation on a large floorplan 2BR apartment in St Kilda for a lovely client who was traveling in Vietnam with her friend. Her Dad had agreed to be her Power of Attorney in the event that...

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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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Investment Loan Structure

Most Property Investors realise that debt plays a part in operating most investment properties.  Furthermore, those sophisticated investors who learn that ‘sensible’ leverage or borrowings can accelerate their potential investment returns, take an active approach in better understanding finance and finance structuring through working with prof...

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Should you be looking at your Home Loan in Isolation?

Do you want someone to help you pick a home loan (Mortgage Broker) or do you want to seek financial advice when it comes to "crucial financial arrangements" by having the guidance of a Finance Advisor? So you have decided to either buy your first home, your next property or to refinance because you want a better deal or you have plans to do some...

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Lenders doing what they do – Lending Money

With all the global economic uncertainty and the flow on effect to the cost of funds for lenders and the risk of possibly a softening Australian economy, one might be thinking the banks will be considering tightening up lending policy. Our read of home loan lending policy is a little bit more macro, driven by the banks’ need to continue to str...

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The Cost of Interest

What is the largest single amount of money you expect to part with in your life?  For most families, a family home will probably be the largest single purchase they will make in their lives.  But while the actual purchase price you pay for a house may be the biggest amount of money you spend in a single lump sum, there is likely to be another cos...

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Double Christmas Bonus for Mortgage Holders or First Timers

For those of you reading this newsletter with Mortgages I put a challenge out to you, which could give you a double Christmas bonus on top of the RBA announcement to drop rates – the question to you is, do you want a further financial bonus – If Yes read on.... Over the next week or two you are going to receive a letter from your lender anno...

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Exit Fee Passed as Legislation

The legislation to ban Exit Fees has been passed into law on 23rd March, by the Federal Government. These new laws will see Exit Fees, including Deferred Establishment Fees banned from 1 July.  The new regulations are: Regulation 79A The new Regulation 79A provides that a credit fee or charge is prohibited if:  it is provided for in a credit...

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$350 Surplus Cash per week could equate to Millions

This month we focus on how you can use surplus cash of $350 per week to potentially control an investment property worth $450,000. It’s all in the numbers….let’s take a look. Surplus Household cash $350 per week after expenses, commitments etc. Purchase Price $450,000 Estimated Purchase Costs $22,500 (5%) includes stamp duty, set up c...

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