Finance Broker Australia Home Loan Broker

Interest Rates

The highlight news this week was that the Reserve Bank of Australia board voted on Tuesday to not increase the cash rate. The next RBA board meeting is on Tuesday June 3rd 2008.

There have been other minor adjustments to home loan interest rates from various lenders with some home loan interest rates decreasing while other lenders interest rates actually increased.

Leasing

Ability Finance received an email notification during the week advising that EFS have withdrawn funding. This email followed settlement of an actual lease Ability Finance had organised for a client on Monday. An email was sent back to EFS requesting confirmation of the announcement and as yet there has not been a response. At this time Ability Finance can only assume that they are no longer able to access leasing for customers via EFS.

Another Ability Finance leasing lender actually announced that they are now financing yellow goods and commercial vehicles at the same competitive interest rates as passenger vehicles. Phone Ability Finance on 02 80024035 for further information.

Pro Pack Home Loans

There seems to be a lot of additional lender advertising recently where specific lenders are making a big deal about offering a 0.70 percent discount off the standard variable home loan interest rate.

This offer is almost the industry standard where all major lenders offer a discount of 0.70 percent when your aggregate home loan borrowings with that lender is more than $250,000. With certain lenders the threshold is as low as $200,000 while with others in excess of $300,000 in total borrowings is required.

This discount is usually available as part of a pro pack or professional package home loan.

Basic home loan offerings are also a competitive option to consider if you do not require additional savings accounts, credit cards and multiple home loan accounts with the same lender. These options are often comulsory with a pro pack home loan.

The difference between most of these pro pack home loan options are the actual fees and charges involved in obtaining and maintaining the pro pack home loan and more recently the fact that the standard variable interest rate home loan between lenders is no longer a standard.

Interestingly the lender we are seeing promoting this pro pack discount package the most in internet advertising has the highest annual package fee we are aware of and also one of the highest standard variable interest rates.

A quick calculation in the ActiveClient home loan qualifier for a $250,000 variable interest rate home loan today actually shows 14 other banks and lenders with a more competitive offer than the lender who is heavily promoting a 0.70 percent discount. There is an actual saving of $55.12 per month in the monthly repayments between the advertised 0.70 percent offer and the lowest variable rate home loan repayments from another competing lender as their interest rate is actually 1.01 percent lower than the other lenders standard variable interest rate home loan.

As always interest rate alone is not a reliable method of choosing a competitive home loan. Contact Ability Finance on 02 80024035 who can calculate your options using their qualifier and home loan comparison software which demonstrates in an easy to understand format the many differences in costs, negatives and features between home loans.