Photo Credit vittaya pinpan Home loan rates are everywhere at the moment. Some lenders are advertising variable rates below 6%. Others are offering cashback to attract new customers. Fixed rates are back in the conversation, and every change in the cash rate brings another round of headlines about how much borrowers could save by refinancing. If your home loan rate starts with a six, it’s reasonable to wonder whether you’re paying too much. But there’s a more useful question

Photo by Andre Taissin on Unsplash Most of us have money that spends at least some of its life waiting. Your salary arrives before the mortgage payment is due. Money accumulates for rates, insurance or a holiday. There might be an emergency fund sitting there that you hope you won't need. Or perhaps you are simply building up savings over time. An offset account can give that money something useful to do while it waits. What is an offset account? An offset account is a transa

Last week both ANZ and Macquarie Bank reduced a number of their fixed home loan rates. Macquarie made the more significant move, cutting rates across its fixed-rate offerings by between 0.25% and 0.50%, with its three-year fixed rate falling to 6.09%. ANZ also trimmed selected fixed rates, reducing its two-year rate to 6.29% and its three-year rate to 6.49%.

photo credit f11photo / shutterstock.com When headlines like “property values flatline” start doing the rounds, it’s easy to assume the market has stalled—or worse, that things are turning sharply downward. But like most headlines, this one only tells part of the story. The latest Cotality data shows that Australia’s national Home Value Index recorded 0.00% growth in May. At face value, that sounds like the market has come to a complete stop. But when you look a little deeper

photo credit Gary Yim / Shotterstock.com After a punishing stretch of recent rate hikes, there are growing signs that homeowners may finally be approaching some much-needed relief. The latest inflation data has delivered a welcome surprise. Headline inflation fell to 4.2% in April, down from 4.6% in March — its lowest level in months and marking the sharpest decline in over a year. A key driver behind the drop was lower fuel costs, though broader price pressures are also begi

there are two primary tools that allow you to do this: the Offset Account and the Redraw Facility. Mathematically, they achieve the same result.Behaviourally, they are very different.