Home Loans, Mortgage Refinance, Bad Credit Home Loans

It is not only the economists that are expecting the RBA to announce a rate cut next week, most borrowers have the same expectation.

A Loan Market survey has identified that 2 out of 3 of respondents expect to see the RBA knife to rates when it meets on February 7. Thirty-nine per cent are forecasting another quarter of a percentage point cut, while 27% expect a deeper 50bp cut.

Rate cut does not only makes loans cheaper it also contributes significantly to consumer confidence and has the overall affect of stimulating the economy.

“The RBA lowering rates in November and December last year came as a welcome relief for borrowers and struggling sectors such as retail, but there are no signs of an improvement in the current global economic environment, particularly the volatile situation in Europe.

How much of the rate reduction will be passed on to holders of...

It seems that in today’s challenging economic times more borrowers are price aware than ever before. In many cases when choosing between loans, pricing of loans  is the determining factor. Borrowers are finding that lines of credit home loans are more expensive than standard home loans with a 100% offset account and consequently more borrowers opt to take up the later.

Even if in some cases a loan offers more flexibility, the financially strapped borrower tends to select loans with lower repayments today than necessarily thinking long term. While this works well in some cases in other cases the borrower is simply postponing the inevitable cost to a later period.

Line-of-credit

A lower than expected inflation figure is fueling speculation that the RBA will again cut rates when it meets on February 7.

The Producer Price Index, considered to be a strong indicator of the CPI, came in just below analysts’ expectations at 0.3% for the quarter. With CPI figures expected to be announced tomorrow, Westpac senior economist Justin Smirk has said inflation risks are weighted to the downside.

Other than inflation – there are daily reports of job losses across the board in the car industry as well as in manufacturing. Interest rate reduction can help boost demand in these areas and possibly create more jobs in the longer term.

Should the Reserve choose to move on rates when it next meets, the question remains whether banks will choose to pass on the cut. According to the Australian Financial Review, a Morgan Stanley analysis has predicted the banks will reprice

In a report in the Daily Telegraph today, it is alleged that  Japanese banks would like to enter the Australian market and if they do could snatch $100 billion of the Australian home loans by undercutting local lenders. Local lenders have already alerted borrowers that they do not intend to pass on all the RBA rate cuts in full. Japanese lenders will be able to take over a significant number of Australian loans if they in fact pass on the rate cuts intact.

The Treasurer, Mr Swan, said that he welcomes new lenders to Australia and believes that they will aid the competition in place for home loans and will only benefit the consumer.

At least three big banks, the $62 billion Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, $42 billion Sumitomo Mitsui...

According to figures provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics,  personal finance commitments declined by 7.8 per cent during November to $7,199 billion.

The ABS today said the seasonally-adjusted commitments were down from $7.806 billion in October. This includes, personal loans, car loans, credit cards and the like.

Commercial finance overall also declined during November. There was a drop of 9.6 per cent to $33.098 billion, seasonally adjusted, from $36.624 billion in October.

Lease finance was up 15.1 per cent to $490 million, compared with $426 million October.

Home Loans taken out by owner occupiers increased by 2.2 per cent to $13.790 billion, from $13.487 billion...

Hundreds of bank customers are about to launch a class action against their banks accusing them of acting outside of legislation when approving their home loans.

According to almost 300 borrowers and their families, banks have offered them loans which are outside of bank guidelines and which should not have been offered and now, the borrowers are facing losing their homes and some have already lost their homes because they are unable to afford their home loans.

Retired British insurance broker Roger Brown, who is orchestrating the case, has set up a website takingonbanks.com and is currently seeking claimants.

According to Mr Brown, many home and property owners are currently experiencing financial hardship through no fault of their...

ASIC has been pressuring the COMMONWEALTH Bank to change potentially false and misleading advertising of its Wealth Package loans. As a consequence of pressure from ASIC and the Banking regulator, CBA has agreed to change their advertising material.

According to Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) some of CBA’s advertising material promoting its Wealth Package loans did not reflect the true cost of the loans.

ASIC was concerned the ads did not include a $350 annual fee in the advertised comparison rate.

Under the National Credit Code, advertising of credit products that include an annual percentage rate must also include a comparison rate. Such comparison rate needs to fully reflect the complete cost of these loans.

“Comparison rates help...

ANZ customers had received other customers loans electronic statements through a system glitch.

ANZ has acted quickly to remove its online bank statements after customers received electronic statements belonging to other people.

An ANZ spokesman said the bank had attempted to reload statements over the weekend and released them to a small batch of customers. However this resulted in the current problem as up to 60 of those customers were then able to view other people’s statements.

Currently ANZ online statements are disabled while the banks is attempting to fix this problem.

ANZ has issued a statement of apology to all affected customers.

While there is significant demand for no deposit loans and 100% home loans, lenders are unlikely to radically change lending criteria over the coming year.

Genworth Financial chief executive Ellie Comerford told the AFR that not withstanding the poor growth levels of 2011, there was an some minor improvement in demand for housing and consequently home loans towards the end of 2011. Much of the new demand was as a result of lender discounting. There is expectation that rates will be coming down further this year and lenders will maintain a high level of competition in the market.

Lenders are unlikely to start easing lending criteria given than many of the current restrictions were introduced in the aftermath GFC.

Lenders would be...

Non conforming unsecured personal loans are in huge demand, unfortunately there are no such loans available in Australia. Borrowers who have tried to borrow for debt consolidation or a holiday or just some spending money from their banks but were declined, are desperately trying to find a lender who would be able to help them online.

Unfortunately unsecured loans beyond a couple thousand generally have the same lending criteria no matter which lender the borrower makes an application through. There is simply no such financial product as a bad credit unsecured personal loan or a low doc unsecured personal loan.

If you have been declined for a personal loan with a bank because you have some paid defaults on your credit report, you will also be...