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. .... Keep Reading »

All too soon, it’s almost that time of the month again: the monthly meeting of the Reserve Bank of Australia where a bunch of people vote on whether or not to raise the official cash rate or not. They’ve done it often enough lately, with five rate rises in less than a year – admittedly from a point where rates where tantalisingly low, but still. Every rise means we have to dig a bit deeper in our pockets to make our monthly mortgage repayments and that still hurts..... Keep Reading »

Rising interest rates don’t just mean that the people with the mortgages and home loans have to pay more. Sometimes I forget that an interest rate rise has a flow on effect; it’s likely to start leading to rises in rental costs as well..... Keep Reading »

It’s happened again. This week when I logged on to my bank account – I spent last week in limbo from the daily newspapers, in hospital having a baby (a fact which explains why this blog was quiet!) – that all-too familiar message appeared. Yes, the interest rate on my mortgage account had been raised again, and I am going to have to pay more this month in my repayment. .... Keep Reading »

Over the past few months a major topic on this blog has been about interest rates rising: remember, the Reserve Bank increased the official cash rate earlier this month as well as in November and December last year, with predictions that there could be several more increases over the course of the rest of 2010. And as you’d expect, banks and other lenders generally followed suit, with some major banks raising rates by even more than the Reserve Bank did..... Keep Reading »

Over the last few years, more and more Australians have been signing up for mortgages equal to 100 per cent – and sometimes even more, up to 110 per cent – of the value of the house or investment property they are buying. And while that was a huge advantage for people who had trouble saving a deposit, it’s also a big risk, both for the banks and the mortgage holder themselves – if something goes wrong and they need to sell the property, it’s certainly not always the case that the sale price will pay off the debt, even in times of a housing boom..... Keep Reading »

If you’re in the market for a new house at the moment, you may have noticed that prices just keep rising, in pretty much every part of Australia. And unfortunately that’s not just a problem for first home buyers like I mentioned a few weeks back. With a 13.6 per cent rise in the average price of a house last year, even the Reserve Bank is warning that housing prices could continue to rise, and that’s not good news if you’re looking to buy..... Keep Reading »

Having a mortgage is cool. Or it must be, because the trends show that we Australians are much more in love with mortgages than we were two decades ago. Reserve Bank statistics on mortgage debts, which they only began to record in 1990, show that our thirst for mortgages has been increasing at a rapid pace. Who would’ve thought that this thing we complain about so often is actually something we can’t get enough of?.... Keep Reading »

This time round, sadly, the Reserve Bank hasn’t surprised us: at this morning’s March meeting the powers that be announced that they would be raising the official cash rate by 25 points to 4.0 per cent, effective from tomorrow. After the surprise announcement in February that the cash rate wouldn’t rise – despite pretty much everyone in Australia being certain it would – the Reserve Bank has continued with the expected trend of having several rate rises during this year and now we’re going to have to start paying a bit more on our mortgages..... Keep Reading »

If you’re not a member of the Australian mortgage (chain) gang yet, a study released this week might be bad news for you. According to the quarterly Housing Industry Association-Commonwealth Bank first home buyer affordability index study which was just published, affordability for buying a house (and the accompanying mortgage) in Australia has got worse again, and first home buyers might really struggle to break into the market. The statistics are quite shocking: the December quarter shows a fall of 18.4 per cent in affordability of housing for first home buyers, a huge drop especially when seen next to the annual fall of 22.3 per cent..... Keep Reading »

Are you one of the increasing number of Australian home loan holders who are having problems making their mortgage repayments? Apparently the number of people getting into trouble with their mortgages is on the rise, according to data released earlier this week. Not only that, the prediction is that it’s only going to get worse..... Keep Reading »

I may not always be a big fan of politicians – from any party – but any politician who tells my bank not to raise my mortgage interest rate has got to be okay in my books. That’s what the federal treasurer Wayne Swan has been saying this week after a big government announcment on the ending of bank funding guarantees..... Keep Reading »

Despite many predictions to the contrary, the Reserve Bank of Australia met today and decided not to raise the official cash rate again. Good news, and quite unexpected, for all of us mortgage holders out there who had been expecting to see another rise in interest rates..... Keep Reading »

There are many different variations on mortgages and home loans out there for you to choose from, but two kinds which have some distinct differences are a regular mortgage and a line of credit (also known as a home equity loan). Just before I bought my first home a few years ago, I got a tip that a line of credit might be the right kind of loan for me. If you want to know if it’s right for you too, then read on..... Keep Reading »

If you’re looking to get your first mortgage, or even to refinance, you’ll most likely have a meeting with a lender or mortgage broker – someone who’s an expert in mortgages and home loans. The problem is these experts sometimes forget that we’re not all experts, and they might bamboozle you with mortgage terminology or bank jargon that starts to make little sense. But it’s really important that you understand what they’re going on about – this is your money, and most probably it’s quite a lot of your money..... Keep Reading »