Home Loans Frequently Asked Questions

No, given the way the loan and title transfer works, you will not have to pay two mortgages at the one time. You will make your last monthly repayment on loan number one and then the following month you will start paying off loan number two.

If you wish to return to your previous lender after refinancing, you will have to go through the refinancing process again and pay a second set of discharge and upfront fees. 

Therefore, before you refinance, it’s important to weigh up the new prospective lender against your current lender in a number of areas, including fees, flexibility, customer service and interest rate.

If your home loan was part of a package deal that included access to credit cards, transaction accounts or term deposits from the same lender, switching all of these over to a new lender can seem daunting. However, some lenders offer to manage part of this process for you as an incentive to refinance with them – contact your lender to learn more about what they offer.

Most Aussie lenders offer home loans with a 30-year term, meaning that you should pay back the full loan amount and the interest you owe on the amount in 30 years. 

However, home loans can also have a shorter or longer term. They may be as low as ten years or up to 45 years, depending on the product and lender. 

It’s worth remembering that a longer loan term usually means you’ll end up paying a lot more interest in total, but your scheduled repayments may be more manageable. In contrast, you could opt for a shorter loan term if you are comfortable making large repayments in exchange for paying less interest over the term of the loan.

If you’re looking to lock in a return on your business savings, one option is a business term deposit with NAB. The big four bank provides competitive interest rates while giving you the flexibility to choose the term. NAB offers business term deposit interest rates for investments of between $5,000 to $499,999.

NAB doesn’t charge any monthly account or application fees. The interest is calculated daily and for the 90-day term and six months term, you will get paid when the deposit matures. For the 12 months term, you can either choose to get paid monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or annually. 

If you wish to withdraw your funds before the deposit matures, you need to give NAB 31 days notice. However, they do make exceptions if you’re experiencing hardship and need the funds immediately. Either way, you may have to bear the prepayment cost, which you can learn more about in the Terms and Conditions.

Applying for a home loan at Westpac is fairly simple. The process from initial application to settlement varies in its time frame. Some customers receive in-principle approval within a couple of days. 

You can initiate the process by filling out the bank’s home loan form and requesting a callback. A Westpac representative will get in touch with you within 24 hours. You will need to provide the following information to the representative during the call: 

• Total income
• Total expenses
• Details about all your liabilities and debts
• Information and value of all your assets. 

The Westpac representative will then share with you information about the types of home loans you may qualify for, along with an estimate of interest rates and applicable fees. 

Once Westpac has received all your details, loan preferences, and documents, the representative will assess all the information. If everything is in order, you may receive an Approval in Principle (AIP) within 2 working days. This specifies the amount Westpac is willing to offer for your home loan. 

Your Approval in Principle will often remain valid for only 90 days and if you don’t find a suitable property within that time frame, you need to apply for a renewal on your Approval in Principle. In this circumstance, if the Westpac representative confirms that there are no changes in your financial circumstances, your Approval can be extended for another 90 days. 

After you have found a home that matches the Approval in Principle, you will need a confirmed contract of sale before Westpac initiates the loan settlement. This process takes about 4-12 weeks or 2-5 days if you’re refinancing. 

The minimum deposit the Commonwealth Bank usually accepts is 10 percent of the amount you wish to borrow. However, a deposit of at least 20 percent of the amount you’re borrowing is needed if you wish to avoid Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI). LMI is charged for smaller deposits to give the lender extra recourse if the borrower fails to repay their loan. 

As an alternative to LMI, some borrowers with smaller deposits may opt to pay the Commonwealth Bank’s low deposit premium fee. It is a one-time, non-refundable charge that is added to a low-deposit home loan.

The deposit and the loan amounts are used to determine the LDP -, the higher the deposit, the lower is this cost. 

When calculating how much you need to save, don’t forget to factor in other expenses like stamp duty, insurance, legal fees, and moving costs.

To start the process of getting a loan with ME bank, you can fill out the online application form. You’ll have to provide information about your income details, assets and liabilities, and the property you want to buy.

Generally, the pre-approval of your loan application can happen within four hours, and in some instances, it may take up to two weeks. It’s important to remember this is only conditional approval.

If you make an offer and the seller accepts it, you’ll need to wait for the cooling-off period, which varies from two to five days depending on where you live. After that, it can take between six and eight weeks after contracts have been exchanged for your application for unconditional approval to be processed.

The fastest way to find out what the lowest interest rates on the market are is to use a comparison website.

While a low interest rate is highly preferable, it is not the only factor that will determine whether a particular loan is right for you.

Loans with low interest rates can often include hidden catches, such as high fees or a period of low rates which jumps up after the introductory period has ended.

To work out the best value for money, have a look at a loan’s comparison rate and read the fine print to get across all the fees and charges that you could be theoretically charged over the life of the loan.

A variable rate home loan is one where the interest rate can and will change over the course of your loan. The rate is determined by your lender, not the Reserve Bank of Australia, so while the cash rate might go down, your bank may decide not to follow suit, although they do broadly follow market conditions. One of the upsides of variable rates is that they are typically more flexible than their fixed rate counterparts which means that a lot of these products will let you make extra repayments and offer features such as offset accounts.