The thing about buying your first home is you don’t know what you you’re doing, it’s such a foreign world! You don’t even know what you don’t know! You don’t know where to start. And you don’t want your loan to be declined, that’s for sure! You need a true advocate – someone to guide you […]
Equity: That bit of your home that the bank doesn’t own
Equity, its the end goal for all of us – its literally the bit we own! And eventually we want to own the lot – right? How do you work out what your equity is? The equity is the difference between what your property is worth and what you owe on the home. Accessible […]
Glossary, all the lingo – explained.
Glossary AAPR: Also referred to as a Comparison rate, the Average Annualised Percentage Rate reflects the total cost of your loan after taking into account other costs like annual and monthly fees. This is then expressed as a total interest rate cost to you over an average loan term. Acceptance: To agree to the terms and […]
Getting your valuation right when you’re building
The valuation has to be one of the biggest hurdles when you’re building a home, as it can be done a number of ways – and it can come back to the lender instruction as to how it is done. I’ve heard of ‘Valuer General land value’ (you know, what you pay your rates based […]
The interesting thing about interest rate comparison…
The interesting thing about interest rate comparisons is there’s more to it than just plain percentages. Take a cheap interest rate with a large fee – for example. Lenders are savvy – they have huge marketing teams looking for whats just the offer to grab you – everyone wants a low interest rate – but […]
Whats the fastest way to pay off your loan?
I just responded this exact question on a forum – and while the answer is simple: 1 Get a good economic interest rate and reasonable fees (if any) 2 put as much money into the loan (or offset account) as soon as you can 3 and leave it there!! It’s also really complex! The poster writes: “I was […]
Borrowing the max – should you?
I’ve spent a bit of time looking at affordability lately: How the bank works out what you can afford Making the most of your income for self employeds and I even wrote this post for Proadvisor website on the perilous impact of credit cards But at the end of the day – what the […]
Getting a loan when you are self employed
When you are self employed you enjoy the freedom of working your own hours (often far more and at the strangest time of the day), directing your own life and creating an income and an asset at the same time. You’re also savvy and you use the resources available to you to your best advantage […]
Why invest in property?
Indulge me a little, I have a really compelling story. If you had bought this unassuming 4 bedroom western Sydney home in February 2010 when it was on the market you would have paid $420,000. Thats fact. If you had borrowed enough to cover the full purchase price, the stamp duty, legal fees and a […]
Got an urge to renovate?
An interesting article out today says people are shying away from renovating their home because of being unsure how to finance it and bring it all together. (source: The Advisor https://www.theadviser.com.au/breaking-news/31430-refinancing-for-renos-too-difficult-survey?utm_source=The+Adviser&utm_campaign=The_Adviser_Bulletin04_02_2015&utm_medium=email) If this is you and you’re living in a tired old box you hate STOP! We’re here to help! Sure, its less straight forward than a […]