Home Loans & Mortgages

Home buyers turn to no deposit and  low-deposit mortgages Lowering home affordability means that first-time home buyers are cutting back on the size of their deposits and opting for bigger mortgages, industry people say. Average deposits for first-time buyers have shrunk to between three and six per cent in recent years compared with the traditional [...]

Property is, and always has been, a solid long-term investment, but maybe not the bonanza it can be right at this point in time.
So if you are thinking of buying a property as an investor, take your time and shop around, and negotiate on price, and buy wel located homes in good suburbs.

The fact is that the banks are not the home loan market, or the housing market; they represent a minor part of it, but they have an unfair amount of power, and have used that power in my view to profiteer on the back of the mortgage belt, at a time when other businesses were suffering.

If the Mortgage Broker explains to the customert that they are offering a no cost home loan service to them, because the lenders are paying them a commission for introducing the home loan to the lender, they are being honest in my view.
If on the other-hand the mortgage selected favours the mortgage broker and his or her own personal interest, then it seems to me that the mortgage broker would have to be considered dishonest.

In the US the average first home buyer is 44 and in Australia it was approaching 38 years old, but recently fell as a boost to the First Home Owners Grant spurred many young people to build new homes in 2009. Later figures are yet to be freely available, but I suspect that this has forced younger people into buying sooner and this would have meant that we are now in the zone wherehomebuyers are again creeping to 40 year old age bracket.
In the UK the figures in a survey showed 20% of potential first-time buyers expect to be 40 years old before they buy their first house.