Vim Fuego

And the lack of decent news, don't forget that ... Christ it's grim here

Fleaflyfloflum

Dont you get bored doing this? I would!

rabsody

Oh god! Has anyone else fixed their home loan? I'm thinking of doing so but not sure whether to do 1, 2, 5 or 10 years. If I get in tomorrow I can do it before the rates go up on Monday.

Vim Fuego

I'm not easily bored, I have a long attention ... er ... whatever ...

Vim Fuego

We have split ours, 3/4 fixed (5 years) and 1/4 variable and we're trying to take chunks of the variable one whenever we have spare cash ... our loan has a cashback facility which means we can draw on any extra with no penalty ... it's good for peace of mind.

It's incredible how much you save in interest if you can voluntarily pay more than the specified repayment (even if it's only a small amount) AND always pay fortnightly, no monthly.

Working for the bank that does it also helps with preferential rates, fee waivers and being able to readily abuse customer service in the event of any disputes.

KLF

So that's what the extortionet charges are for, so you can surf the net at work all day?

rabsody

I knew you'd come in handy one day thanks for the input. I currently do pay it off way over and above the min. amount but appears you lose the offset/redraw facility with some of the fixed rate mortgages (I'm with ANZ). I might look at giving the split option a go. Cheers Vim

dunroving

It's funny (and I don't mean in the Ha Ha sense), but this email string could have been written by anyone who moved back to the UK in the recent past ... increased mortgage rates, high house prices, high petrol prices ...

Vim Fuego

Hey, I'm on the little guy's side, I'm trying to keep 'em honest ... failing though, so I might as well take the cash

Vim Fuego

Might be true with our fixed-rate too, the banks do like to know how much interest they are going to get in advance ... hence the extortionate 'early settlement' fees

It's amazing how many people pay monthly rather than fortnightly though, they should just compare the two methods in one of those repayment calculators and watch the term of the loan shrink ...

rabsody

Well I pay it monthly, but I put in the mortgage repayment amount plus a couple of grand to save (which we can redraw if we need). Would it make any diff if I did this fortnightly instead of monthly?!! (prob should use the calculators but I'm too lazy )

Vim Fuego

Hell yes!

On a loan of $350,000 over 25 years at an interest rate of 6.25% you would save FOUR YEARS of repayments switching to fortnightly.

Here is quite a nice calculator from a random bank, it also does the 'extra repayment' thing
http://www.suncorp.com.au/Suncorp/pe...alculator.aspx

KevC

$1.75 = 78p

it's currently around £1.06 per litre in the UK

rabsody

Thanks Vim, I didn't realise it made that much difference. Well, I am blonde! Will do de vewwy big sums on de compoota calc (sorry having a funny five mins).

ex_exile

You should come buy it in New Zealand, its only $1.71, thats 66p