Getting a home loan with a redraw facility is a useful and flexible financial tool. Any extra funds you pay into your home loan, can be withdrawn when needed, to cover emergencies or pay for unplanned expenses. At the same time, those extra funds save you money too, as any extra repayments on your loan also lower how much interest you’re charged. To find out if a redraw would suit your home loan, here’s more on how a redraw facility works.

Buying a first home is a significant milestone that takes commitment to saving, careful decision making, and considered planning. The biggest hurdle for most first home buyers? Saving a deposit. Depending on where you are in Australia, it can take as long as eight years to save enough, all the while chasing down rising house prices which means having to save even more! If you are ready to buy your first home, here are a few things to consider.

Buying a car isn’t like buying an item of clothing! You can’t return it if you don’t like it. And unless there’s an actual fault, the seller has no obligation to refund you or to accept any liability if you’ve simply changed your mind. Because the car buying process is fraught with opportunity to make bad decisions and even lose money, it helps to know in advance what pitfalls you may face. Here are 5 mistakes to avoid when buying a car.

Personal finance is full of rules of thumb about saving, spending, paying off debt, and budgeting. These well-known financial guidelines help us apply proven methods for saving, investing, buying a home and even planning for retirement. They can be useful shortcuts for making quick calculations and decisions about finance. In this article, we’ll look at 3 financial rules of thumb that we believe are worth incorporating into personal finance decisions.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people began taking stock of their lives, re-evaluating their lifestyle and financial position, with particular attention to their superannuation and its investment potential. This focus, combined with factors like a resilient property market, poor returns on cash deposits, and tax advantages, have led to the growth of self-managed super funds (SMSF). In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the lending options available to SMSF’s as well as the current investment property market.

With historically low interest rates, many Australian homeowners choose to structure part, or all, of their home loan on a variable interest rate. Fluctuations in the variable interest rate mean sometimes mortgage repayments are lower, while at other times a higher repayment is charged. If you’ve ever wondered why the variable interest rate differs from lender to lender, or even how variable interest rates are calculated, here’s a simple explanation.

Many people believe that low income earners – and those who rely on government benefits – are not eligible for home loans. But that’s not always the case. If your household income is supported by Family Tax Benefits (FTB) from Centrelink, the good news is, there are still lenders who will consider this type of home loan application.

The key to success is working with a mortgage broker who understands which lenders to approach. Read on to find out what you need to know about using non-standard income to access home loan lending.

Living through a pandemic has changed our view on many things. From wanting a better work life balance and more focus on health, wellness and exercise, to a greater desire to learn more and the need to connect online.

But it also changed how we live, with flexible working arrangements helping turn long-term dreams of escaping to the country into reality. Holiday rental giant, Airbnb, has responded by changing the way it works, while real estate agents across Australia are already reporting significant spikes in demand for properties in rural areas.

Here’s a closer look at how COVID-19 has changed the way we live.

Government-led housing initiatives have been updated in the Federal Government Budget, announced earlier this month. Along with the Family Home Guarantee, aimed at helping single parents buy a home with a two per cent deposit, the New Homes Guarantee program is being expanded, and the amount that first home buyers will be able to access under the First Home Super Saver Scheme is also increasing. Here’s more on each of these programs.

In this year’s Federal Budget, single parents who may be struggling to get onto the property ladder, received a helping hand from Government, with the introduction of the Family Home Guarantee. Designed to help single income earners with dependents buy a home with just two per cent deposit, the scheme kicks off on 1 July 2021, but with limited places. Read on to find out more.