BirdsEye

Hi All

First message here...

Does anyone have any idea how long things are taking having invested money in government bonds? We did it a few weeks ago.

Thanks

claire edwards

Welcome to the forum!

Have you checked out www.austimeline.com ?

I'm at the final stages of my application, the waiting is quite frustrating isn't it?!?!?

BirdsEye

Hi Clare

Tried the link but got a weird message. Busy, no account thing...

Anyway, yep, it's a bit frustrating but selling the house is the biggest hurdle at the moment. Everything has been really slow over the summer. Hopefully, it'll start to pick up. (Down here in the SouthEast anyway!)

claire edwards

I know....I think the website is a bit temperamental at the moment, try it again later.

BirdsEye

Tried a few times...

Is this a wind-up?!

SuperSeagulls

Who did you use to lodge the money BirdsEye...was it HIFX? And in what State?

SS

BirdsEye

Hi SuperSeagulls

Yup! Used HIFX. But we don't have States, we have counties!

Tincx

Hi

Whats HIFX? I think SS meant what State did you lodge the bond with in Australia?

Can i add what Interest Rate did you receive?

Any info would be great as a few of us here need to lodge the request soon (i hope!)

Farmer Alfalfa

Have I misunderstood this $100K thing?

It seems an awful lot of money for 5 measly points :-) !

Farmer Alfalfa

BirdsEye

Hi All

(SS - sorry about the misunderstanding, I've obviously been spending too much time on other forums!)

www.hifx.co.uk is a well respected company for buying currency. They offer a far better rate than the banks will and offer a free transfer to banks worldwide.

As for interest rate, we got 5.06 in QLD.

One way to make this $100K investment work for you is to get 4 credit cards interest free for 9 months (you need to look around) of approx £10K on each. Especially Egg and MBNA. Egg let you transfer cash to bank accounts. MBNA will sometimes allow you to take cash without a fee. Use credit card balances transferred between cards and to the bank and hey presto you've got £40K ($100K Aus) sitting in QLD earning you money! Trust me, it really works! If your credit is good, you can then apply for another credit card at the end or whatever you need to cover the remaining 3 months. Once you get your cash back you should have an extra few 'grand' sitting in the bank!

A word of caution. Each time you apply for a credit card, you are credit scored which is lodged with agencies. If you have redundant cards, turn them in and you credit score should improve.

Of course, you could remortgage but then you may have fees associated with it - not earning you money.

(Not professional advice!! Just something you might want to consider etc.)

claire edwards

No it's not a wind up, you'll see.

chris n

We got 5.2% with WA in July - we received the pre-grant letter around a month after investing the cash. You may want to try emailing your case officer just checking that they had received all the paper work (but not asking out right how long). We were told to get back to them if we hadn't received the letter within four weeks - by which time the pre-grant letter was here.

Chris

Tincx

Hi All

Slightly off topic but does anyone know if the Interest you receive whilst your bond is invested fluctuates according to the base rate?

I hear it is highly likely of a base rate rise in Australia before Christmas.
Does the Interest go up and down or stay the same with the quote you receive when you lodge the bond?

SuperSeagulls

Hi BridsEye,

Yep I meant what Aussie State.

Like the Credit Card idea, but me personally...its gonna be Bank Loans to the tune of £40k...invest for 12 months while paying off monthly repayments then when you get the $100k back, pay off the difference. Its a bit of a gamble on the exchange rate but you could make or lose a few grand..but its the only way for me to get the magial 5 points.

I'm prepared to lose out a couple of percent over the year in interest (typical bank APR 7.0%, Bond APR 5%).

Onwards and upwards....

SS

SuperSeagulls

BirdsEye..one more thing mate.....what were HIFX like? Was it easy to move the money? Did you have to set up an account in advance or can the money be moved in one telephone call?

SS