Want to have a mortage that lasts forever? Believe it or not, that’s the enticement being used by a particular bank at the moment: sign up for your “everlasting mortgage”. That doesn’t sound very enticing to me, but when you look into the product then it could be something that suits you – if you’re aware of the catches. Continue Reading »

When you first take out a home loan, whether it’s for your own home or as an investment, you start off with the expectation that you’ll be able to make repayments relatively easily – whether that’s from your salary or from rental income. Nobody deliberately (I hope!) takes on a mortgage that they’re going to have trouble repaying. But then interest rates rise – like they’ve done pretty regularly here in the last year – and it’s a little scary how quickly you can get out of your depth and start to have problems making your repayments. Continue Reading »

It’s been a big news week for finances, with the economic crisis in Greece making the world markets nervous, and within Australia, with a federal budget being announced. But will all this have much impact on our mortgages? In the first case, the answer seems to be “hopefully not”, and in the latter, the answer is more like “unfortunately not”. Continue Reading »

Looks like my gut feeling last week was right: the Reserve Bank did indeed decide to raise the official cash rate by 25 basis points. That makes it the sixth rise in less than a year, so let’s hope it’s the last one for a while. Continue Reading »