comet555

I'm just wondering if any of you have switched your mortgage over to another bank.

I'm a bit annoyed with Macquarie who currently has our mortgage. They've not yet dropped their interest rates, although the guy on the phone said they are expected to do something on Friday. I knows it's not a lot of money in the short term but I don't think it's wrong to expect the banks to drop their rates in line with the reserve bank.

Anyhow, I'm thinking about switching over to Westpac because that's who we currently bank with. It actually looks like a better deal and it would work better for us. The only problem is the fees associated with leaving Macquarie.

I talked to Macquarie and they said I would be charged a $2000 deferred establishment fee and a $500 discharge fee. That seems a bit steep to me! I know we've only been there 1 year and that's the reason for the big fee. I'm still surprised though because Westpac said they normally only charge $900 for leaving.

Anyway.... does anyone have any advice. I would gladly switch over if the exit fees weren't so big. Has anyone had any luck lowering their exit fees, or possibly talking the new bank into covering them somehow? I highly doubt it but I'm still interesting in making a switch but just can't justify it at the moment.

Nu-Shooz

We were with Rams when we first got a morgage as we had no jobs and they offered no doc loan but with higher rate. So after 1 year with them we switched banks. A financial advisor did everything for us. We changed to Bankwest at a lower rate. This did cost us (around $900) but our monthly payments were lower.
I have just recently lowered my rate from 9.18% to 8.6% just by telephoning Bankwest and requesting a lower rate. This cost me $350. Worth it in the end. Will be going down again with the new lower rate too.
It is worth changing over if you do save in the long run, even if it costs you to do so.

comet555

For $900 I'd switch in a heartbeat. For $2500 I might wait a bit and see what happens. If I wait a year to switch the fee drops to $1500.

Tambo

Hi there,

i am a mortgage broker based in Noosa. I think moving to Westpac would be a good idea, in fact a few of my maquarie clients are doing the same.

If you like give me a call and I will provide you with a quote showing the complete costs.

You will be surprised how quickly you will get back the $2500.

Nu-Shooz

[QUOTE=Tambo;6760909]Hi there,

i am a mortgage broker based in Noosa. I think moving to Westpac would be a good idea, in fact a few of my maquarie clients are doing the same.

If you like give me a call and I will provide you with a quote showing the complete costs.

You will be surprised how quickly you will get back the $2500.



Don't think you should put your phone number on here, PM it instead

E3only

Macquarie Bank for your mortgage - sorry buddy but what were you thinking ?

BankWest currently has 8.35% and lower than any major bank (CBA,NAB,ANZ,Westpac).....regards to switching fee- you gotto bite the bullet so as to speak. If the interest rate (macquari) is not too far from say 8.35% then may be wait for one year so the exit fees are lower...

Regards to switching banks, call banks and see how much they are going to charge. My friend changed from VirginMoney to NAB and they charged nothing. He did pay 1500 exit fees.

Call BankWest. They are a decent bank. Supported by HBOS Plc. They are on a massive market share drive, so they may not charge anything as NAB...negotiate hard.....that's the way to go....

comet555

Well... I've since worked out all the costs.

Switching to Westpac with the rates quoted as is will save me $100 in 2 years. This is based on us having $15,000 in the offset account, without that staying with Macquarie would be better. Obviously the longer we would have the mortgage the more we would save. I already know we will most likely be selling the house in 2 years and possibly moving back to Canada, so I need to make sure it makes sense in the short term.

If I can get Westpac to give me a 0.7 reduction instead of the 0.4 they quoted on the phone then we would save about $750 over the 2 years. The bigger reduction comes from having a slightly bigger loan, so I'm hoping they'll give me the better rate to get our business.

I do have a rather nice excel spreadsheet for anyone who cares to see the calculations. PM me if you would like to see it. I don't mind posting it if people are interested in seeing how to work it all out. I also worked out the costs for switching next year since my Macquarie exit fees would be less, but Westpac still comes out cheaper if I switch now.

Now... if I used the Macquarie offset account then they would be cheaper, but I'm just not comfortable using them to do all my banking and be my "only" bank. I would be comfortable using Westpac for everything though.

comet555

Not really thinking to be honest! We had only been here for about 3 months so we just went with a mortgage broker. I don't believe Westpac was even one of the lenders they dealt with.

Part of the reason we went with Macquarie is because a few of the banks were giving us a hard time about only being in the country for 3 months. It was just easier at the time.

I have no problem making a change now because I see it'll be cheaper even in the short term.

comet555

Thanks for that, although I notice that those rates seem to be introductory, and really only last for 12-24 months. Then the rate is higher than I'm being quoted by Westpac.

Macquarie is definitely way over 8.35% though!

Will definitely be negotiating elsewhere because Macquarie has done absolutely nothing to entice me to stay, and I know this because they already told me the exit fees and assumed I wouldn't be switching!

Tambo

May be best to pm me

asprilla

and therein lies the danger of mortgage brokers !

comet555

Looks like I've got myself a deal with Westpac. I really wanted to deal with Westpac because that's my regular bank and I've been really happy with them so far.

I worked out a really nice spreadsheet to compare the costs of staying with Macquarie or switching to Westpac. Even with the big exit fees with Macquarie I'll still save a couple grand over the next 2 years alone. So it's well worth the switch. I managed to get a significantly better interest rate (0.7% lower than Macquarie's current rate) after two days of back and forth with someone. I had to show them my spreadsheet so they could see a switch over at their original quoted rate wasn't good enough. So in the end I talked them into a further rate reduction of 0.35%.

I already know we'll likely be selling the house and paying off the mortgage in 2 years so I basically said that I can pay Macquarie XX amount of interest over the next two years, or Westpac could get it..... but only if we get a better rate. After a couple checks with the manager I got it. So I'm pretty pleased.

I have absolutely nothing against Brokers. It's just in hindsight I should have paid more attention and did some research for myself like I normally do. At the time I just didn't want the hassle of dealing with all the banks.

I used to be a high school math teacher before the kids so I'm quite capable of working out all the costs and comparing the different scenarios. At least now that we're settled I have more time and am more comfortable working it all out.

comet555

Thanks for the advice everyone, and for the offers of help.