Make your money go further, and live the life the Gold Coast has to offer by giving less money to your bank and keeping more in your pocket.
G’day Gold Coast, Quinto White here form Q Financial. Lets talk about why people are refinancing their homes.
- Wanting a better interest rate to increase their cash-flow
- Consolidating debts into one to increase cash-flow, by heaps!
- Equity access (cash out) for reno’s, to buy cars etc.
- Use equity for the deposit for their next property purchase
Here are some questions we often get asked:
Will refinancing save me money?
Saving money is the most common reason people refinance, we will make sure the savings are very clear and will always include all costs such as discharge fees, new application fees and on going fees. After all, Its not all about the rate, mate.
On average we see people with about $200 per month extra cash-flow from a simple home loan refinance, when consolidating other debts such as credit cards, personal loans or car loans we often see an increase of cash-flow of over $1,000 per month!
What would you do with an extra $200 per month?
Personally I would do a mixture of taking the family out to dinner, getting some new clothes and saving for our next holiday, Hawaii or a Japan snow-boarding trip? we cant decide…
What are the common fees when refinancing?
Here is a list of common refinance fees, although these vary quite a bit from bank to bank.
- Discharge fee, this is when you leave a lender.
- Application fees, depending on the lender and product these often range from $0-$600.
- Settlement fees, these usually range from $100-$300.
- Valuation fees, these are extremely rare these days as lender usually pays this one.
- Ongoing fees, this might be a monthly or an annual fee and usually range from $8-$10 per month or $199-$395 per year.
The good news is we can work out the monthly savings when comparing your existing loan to a new one quite easily and of course with all of the above included in the comparison so you can compare ‘apples with apples’.
How much can I borrow?This will depend on your income and liabilities and does vary quite a bit from lender to lender, I recommend not relying on online calculators unless your on a base salary with no overtime or bonus, anything outside of this they usually just waste your time.
Often we may access $30k-$50k for a client and the monthly repayments don’t even go up after reducing the interest rate, so they they get that car or holiday they’ve been wanting so bad and it doesn’t even change their cashflow. obviously this will depend on your loan size, current interest rate and the new interest rate after the refinance…
How often should I refinance?
On average Australians refinance their home loans every 3-4 years. But this does not mean you need to follow suit…
There are many reasons to refinance, I recommend having a home loan health check every 12 months and refinancing it when one of the following happens.
- You see theres plenty of cheaper rates than the one your on
- You determine you now need different features than you currently have, such as offset accounts, redraw facility or fixed rates etc.
- You want to access some extra cash
- Your interested in buying another property
So, if your considering a refinance, give us a call or click the link below today and let us show you whats on offer in todays market.
Yours truly – Quinto White – Awesome Mortgage Broker – 0407 577 792
