Welcome to April which brings with it a host of events – Easter, Anzac day, school holidays, comedy festivals and the Qld world triathlon to name a few. With so much going on this month, it’s nice to have the Reserve Bank announce today that they will leave official cash interest rates on hold for the month, just as most experts had predicted.
Despite the RBA placing rates on hold, we should all expect to receive notification from our existing lenders of an upcoming rate rise to variable rates. These rate rises come into effect from March through to May and it’s important to note that they aren’t included in a banks advertised rate until becoming effective. So while receiving these letters may prompt you to review your loan and look at other lenders, it is important to ensure that the rate increases have already been factored into any advertised rates that we are using as a comparison. That’s where coming to us to compare your loan can help – we will make sure we compare apples with apples when reviewing your loan competitiveness.
So far this year we have seen tougher requirements forced on the banks, resulting in investment loans and interest only loans having higher interest rates applied. Further to this, we have had another blow to the interest only loan market this month with the industry body, APRA, providing some tougher measures for banks to meet when offering Interest only loans. This could potentially cause another round of higher rates for some loan types and tougher lending criteria by the banks as they struggle to meet APRA’s requirements. All of these changes make it so much harder for the standard person to find the best loan without the help of an experienced mortgage broker, so if you know anyone trying to get a loan on their own, feel free to pass them our details to get some assistance.
Stay well until next month and feel free to call if we can be of further help.
