Home Loans & Mortgages

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia [CBA] has just dropped the home loan rate on its recently introduced ”no fee” home loan offer to 7.11% in response to other major players offering deep discounts in order to attract home buyers and mortgage refinance customers in a slow mortgage market.

Finance Minister Nick Minchin has indicated he does not believe an expected hone loans mortgage interest rate rise this week is warranted. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is widely tipped to raise interest rates this Wednesday by one quarter of one per cent. Mr Minchin today said he did not want to give the RBA [...]

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) said three interest rate rises in 2006 had dampened recent demand for housing finance. Australia’s central bank said in its quarterly statement on monetary policy that upward movements in the cash rate in May, August and November last year had brought housing loan rates to a level that was [...]

As Victoria’s housing  values have plummeted about $40 billion in the past six months, we need to ask why it is such a bad thing. Afterall the Sharemarket has corrections all the time, so why do we expect the real estate values to climb relentlessly without having the same laws of the market apply.  Let’s [...]

The Green bank fees and interest rate agenda
The Greens have bills before parliament to:
Regulate interest rate rises by ensuring banks charge no more than a fixed amount above a base rate,
Force banks to offer basic, free transaction accounts to all customers,
ban Bank ATM withdrawal fees and to cap mortgage exit fees.