Empower Blog Interest Rates

RBA Cash Rate Decision – September 2018

Today, the Reserved Governor and the Board met and they kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5% for the first month of spring. There's obviously been a lot happening over the course of the last month. We now have a new prime minister — ScoMo as we like to refer to him — so, Scott Morrison takes over from Malcolm Turnbull. Now, the economy, lik...

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RBA Cash Rate Decision – August 2018

The Reserve Bank Board of Australia met, and they’ve kept the cash rate on hold for another month. We haven't seen a cash rate movement since August of 2016.   Now, on the positive side, we actually saw growth as good — growth is actually going alright. So, that's positive. Business confidence and business investments are actually...

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RBA Cash Rate Decision – July 2018

As we start the new financial year, the Reserve Board met today and, as wildly anticipated, they rinsed and repeated, keeping the cash rate on hold at 1.5%. Now, even though the cash rate is on hold, I believe that what we’re going to see over the course of the next few months — subject to what happens in the Royal Commission — is banks li...

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Sky News Real Estate – Budget 2018 and its affect on Home Owners and Investors

Ben Kingsley joins the Sky News panel to discuss the latest Budget announcement, Budget 2018, and its implications to home owners, first home buyers and investors. So, what’s the overall take on the Budget, and what’s it saying about consumer confidence? Importantly, given that $24.5 billion dollars out of an overall $75 billion spending is ...

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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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RBA Cash Rate Decision – June 2018

Today Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met and — no surprises here — cash rate is on hold at 1.5%. So, a bit of a “rinse and repeat” as I like to say. And that's definitely going to be the case —  I'm calling it here now —it’s definitely going to be the case right through until the end of 2018, and I can't see that changing anytim...

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RBA Rate Decision – May 2018

Note: To download the Money SMARTS Checklist, go to www.empowerwealth.com.au/money-smarts or click here. Today Governor Lowe and the Board met and they kept the cash rate on hold for a 21st consecutive month. So we haven’t seen a change to the cash rate since August 2016. So let’s take a look at what’s happening in the positive side of ...

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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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RBA Rate Decision – April 2018

Today, Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met for April and they kept the ash rate on hold at 1.5%. No surprises there as both the Reserve Governor and the Board are flagging to industry and business that they're in no rush to move the rates higher anytime soon.   The reason for that is they still want to see stronger economic growth...

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RBA Rate Decision – March 2018

At the March 2018 RBA board meeting, we saw the cash rate remain on hold at 1.5%. No surprises there — we know that the rate has been widely tipped to stay on hold from most economists around the country. This is an interesting point because what Governor Lowe made mention in February was that he doesn't see any strength in moving the cash rat...

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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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RBA Rate Decision – February 2018

Today Governor Lowe and the Board met for the very first time in 2018, and they kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5%. Again, no surprises there. The reason for that is because inflation numbers came out last week and the overall year-to-date number for 2017 was only 1.9%. We all know that they want to keep the inflation bandwidth between 2% ­– ...

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Have you taken this critical step to reducing your debt?

[gravityform id="26" title="false" description="false"]   Hi, Ben Kingsley here. I hope you've had a great Christmas and a fabulous new year. But now we've got to pay for that joy, don't we? Now, if we've put too much of that on our credit card then, ultimately, we have to be paying off that credit card. Did you know that in Austra...

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