The RBA has yet again kept interest rates on hold, but that doesn’t stop you getting a better deal on your home loan right now! Here are four simple ways to lower your repayments, or pay your loan off faster in today’s competitive environment. As a quick guide, a 0.3% interest rate saving on a $400,000 loan, will save you $1,200/year in interest costs – that’s $100/month!
1. Negotiate a better deal with your current lender – just give us the go-ahead and we can do this for you; with several banks so inundated with these requests, that they’ve automated the process online. No exit fees, minimal paperwork and very fast to implement, but from recent experience with this, they may not be as flexible with the rate as with other suggestions.
2. Top up your current loan, to access existing equity – this will trigger a new loan application, which automatically gives you access to the better rates that your lender is giving to new borrowers, that previously wasn’t available to you. We would need some documents from you and we can then apply for extra funds for another investment property, some renovations, or a new car and the repayments at the lower interest rate are likely to be similar to the old loan at the old rate.
3. Switch lenders – with the current red-hot November special being offered to anyone with a loan of less than 80% of the CURRENT market value 4.69% ongoing variable (1.3% below SVR) – with a up to 10 offset accounts and NO ANNUAL FEE for the life of the loan. There will be some discharge fees and state government fees to pay, but these are typically only around $500 and the annual fee saving alone is worth $375/year.
4. Switch to a fixed rate – Just let us know how long you’d like to fix for an how much of the loan you’d like to fix and we can access 1 year rates as low as 3.99%, 2 years at 4.49%, 3 years at 4.59% and 5 years at 4.69%, but these also vary by lender, so your current lender may have fixed rates higher than this, but still better than your current rate. Again, minimal paperwork and costs, just let us know.
We’d love to hear from you, especially if it’s been a while since you have reviewed your loan. Our office is expanding so we can help more people buy and hold property over the long run.
P.S. please feel welcome to share this with your friends and family and we’ll be happy to help them too.