Happy Monday!
Another week closer to Christmas and it would seem that feet are firmly placed on accelerators racing to the Dec 20 deadline that most are saying will be the last day of trade till Jan. This is not entirely true though, as many of us know there are only a few days really that many of us will really close, including me.
Finance News has been fairly hot, must have something to do with the incessant smoke.
On the back of what was reported last week around property prices spiking in Sydney. I happened across an article that gave a little more depth to the reason behind it, pushed by the prestige end of the market. Though housing prices in most capital cities seem to be on the move upwards.
The RBA kept the rate on hold, though if the market pundits are to be believed we will see a cash rate of .25% before long. A scary prospect as most of my financial colleagues would agree, especially for the Grey Army.
If you haven’t already, it might be time to chat with your financial planner. Let me know if you don’t have a relationship with a Financial Adviser and I can make an introduction for you.
I am sure that most of you also saw some of the scaremongering from a few corners of the media relating to our economic and wages growth. A couple of those articles mentioning the R word, which is a frightening thought indeed.
NAB took to their home loan rates last week with a fairly sizeable cut of 11 basis points, bringing an owner occupied variable loan, with a loan to value ratio of less than 80% to 3.09%, the same 11bps cut being delivered to loans above 80% to 3.29%.
These are not the cheapest rates in the market by any stretch of the imagination, with the cheapest on panel lender for me being the Teachers Mutual group at a variable rate of 2.80% for an under 80% loan and Suncorp at 3.03% for an under 90% variable rate loan.
On the flip side of this Citibank raised their rates this week to improve their processing times and let their team catch up. I think that many lenders will be using the Christmas period to play catch up.
Getting a loan approved is still possible before Christmas, though we may not have a massive choice in who we are able to use. Pepper is a lender you would normally associate with someone who is credit impaired. They are currently pushing a prime rate that is very competitive at 3.12% under 80% with service levels of 48 hrs.
Below is a link on the House price recovery article I mentioned.
I hope your week is great! Let me know if you need anything.
Scenarios quoted above are suggestions and constitute general advice only.
Comments