Home Loans & Mortgages

The way some people see it, BankWest head of mortgages John Rolfe holds the key to profitability in the nation’s $600 billion mortgage market. The theory goes like this. BankWest’s aggressive parent HBOS, having already caused chaos in the cosy banking industry by hiking deposit rates, is ready to move to the asset side of [...]

The Reserve Bank of Australia [RBA] is being blamed for a dive in housing construction, raising fears that rents are set to rise sky high due to a lack of residential rental housing accomodation in most Capital Cities and many regional areas. The number of new housing plans approved by local councils dipped 2 per cent in [...]

Adelaide Bank shareholders will need to approve a planned merger with the larger Bendigo Bank. The boards of the Adelaide and Bendigo banks have announced plans to merge. [Bendigo Bank is a regional community bank player, and Adelaide Bank is Australia's wholesale mortgage lender player, with 90 percent of its home loans done outside South [...]

After all Westpac has pulled itself from near bankruptcy in the early nineties to be a contender Australia’s biggest bank. Mainly at the cost of its mortgage holders, during the Global Financial Crisis, and the “Banana smoothie” scandal. [Free publicity is good publicity, and who doesn't like a banana smoothie Gail, right?] So there’s a missed branding opportunity. “The Banana Smoothie Bank”. [smoothie in more ways than one it would seem]

Homes loans have become complicated
Can you remember the days when comparing home loans was easy? I can. All you had to do was pick the one with the lowest interest rates! And you would have been right.
Comparison rates
Now its not so simple. What about the comparison rate? Well….