Home Loans & Mortgages

The Reserve Bank is ready to pull the trigger on interest rates. Inflation is getting a bit on the high side and unemployment looks like falling even lower, so the RBA will feel compelled to raise rates. However if the CBA and other baks follow suit, then they will have done the RBA’s job, and official rates could remain as they are for now.

With most mortgage interest rate crystal gazers, Mr Mortgage included, expecting the RBA to increase the cash rate by 0.5% this this year, it might be tempting to think about fixed interest rate.

The two things against this are that we have seen base rates rise by nearly 2% since the GFC, and that was the time to fix. The other reason this might be a bad idea is that the RBA talks about rate rises a lot more than it actually raises the cash rate.
The motives for raising interest rates are skimpy.

Adelaide Bank’s shared equity home loan The Adelaide Bank is the first bank in Australia to launch a shared-equity home loan which could make property ownership easier, but analysts warn it could boost house prices. The Shared Equity Mortgage [Equity Finance Mortgage] is a home loan product that allows home owners to borrow as little [...]

Melbourne Australia’s Liberman family has entered the fledgling shared equity home loan business through a $25 million investment in an unlisted fund recently launched by Macquarie Bank-affiliated Rismark International. Its LJCB Investment Group has bought into the first of several planned Equity mortgage funds from which Rismark hopes to corner the shared equity home loan market. [...]

It is beginning to look like Australia will dodge the recession bullet. Australians’ confidence in the future have risen its best level in nearly two years, as home buyers and homeowners grew more optimistic about an early economic recovery. A predicted slide in house values hasn’t happened, and in many parts of the economy its business as usual.