Mrs Jackaroo

We're looking at buying a property so I'm now doing a bit of research on the mortgages available.

Just wondering which companies you guys have used, and what your thoughts are on them?

Also, if theres anyone on here whos recently done a load of research and wants to share their findings with me....that would be fanfreakingtastic!!

Tigeresswhite

We have just gone with Bankwest as they are doing 1% less than the 3 major banks base rate. We are also paying fortnightly as you make 2 more payments per year and this will eventually reduce the amount of years you pay the mortgage and the interest is lower as it is calculated daily as you are making additional payments so the interest will be for the fortnight not the whole month.

Hope this helps a bit.

Nu-Shooz

Yeah me too, we are with Bankwest. We pay fortnightly too in the hope that we don't pay as much interest in the end. We changed our morgage from Rams to Bankwest last year. I'm still not happy with the rates, i'm sure my rate is over 9%.

IvanM

I chose ING due to no ongoing fees and 8.99 rate.

I was with Virgin Money but they screwed up and forgot to ask me for a payslip to renew the approval. Virgin Money no longer have access to the money markets and are not issuing any loans.

Mrs Jackaroo

Bankwest are the only ones we've looked at so far - they seem pretty good. Thanks for that

Mrs Jackaroo

Good to hear you're happy with ING - I did a bit of research last night and ING is on my list to call today. Virgin Money also were...they're not now...thanks for the heads up!

DownUnderPaddy

With Suncorp since we took out our mortgage with them 3 years ago.
Latest rise has the rate we pay with them now at 8.97%

Their rate is a permanent .7% discount off the standard variable rate (currently 9.67) over the life of the loan.

Although BankWests Rate Tracker gives you 1% off the standard variable rate initially, after 2 years it reverts back to the Lite Home Loan rate which is currently 9.18%, so keep that in mind.

Mrs Jackaroo

Ah I hadn't thought of Suncorp - we've got our home insurance with them too. I'll check them out thanks

northernbird

We are with NAB and we have a split home loan. part is fixed and part is variable. It means that we can increase the payments on the variable part and get ahead. We have increased it to crippling amount but we will have that part of the loan paid off in 6 years if we carry on as we are.

Mrs Jackaroo

Ah right, I wondered what this 'split' business was all about - thanks for that. I'll check out NAB too

Mrs Jackaroo

Ah now thats interesting! The one thing about Bankwest that concerned me was that it was only tracked for 2 years.

Thanks for that

spottydog

Ours in with Commonwealth, the wealth package gives us 0.7% of the current rate plus free banking, credit card and other discounts for $300 a year. We currently pay 8.88% onthe mortgage.

As I also have my bank account with them I leave all the money in the mortgage account to offset interest then just transfer minimal amounts into the current account via netbank (any amount over $500 doesn't incur any charges and the transfer between the accounts is instant).

All our daily spending goes on the credit card which is paid once a month by direct debit (I set up an automatic transfer between the mortgage and current account for the required amount so I maximise the time the money spends offsetting my mortgage).

Kim67

Ours is with Members Equity - my husband is in banking so would have shopped around for best deal at the time - don't know whether they're the best deal now, but here's the link to check it out.

http://www.membersequitybank.com.au/...ome_loans.html

Tigeresswhite

Are there any Financial Advisors who give a free service anywhere near you? We used one over here in Perth and all of the advice was free and as they were independant they were not tied in with any banks or corporations.

The chap we used showed us all of the banks rates/ charges/ fees and loan information so that we could get a clear overall picture.

We did go for BankWest and yes the rates are only held for 2 years but they are also free of a lot of the get out fees and give you a lot more scope than a lot of the others. With there being no fee for getting out after 2 years you could still get a better deal in 2 years time.

Nicky

breezeboylan

We have exactly the same but with Bankwest. Paying extra on the variable part as well.
Tracie