News
4 Practical Tips for Finding the Right Mortgage Broker When Buying a Home
Anyone will tell you that buying a house is truly a life milestone. As such, it’s not a matter to take lightly. When you are finally ready to buy property, you need to make the right decisions. Additionally, you’d want the process to go as smoothly as possible. A mortgage broker would be helpful in […]
Thinking of Renovations
It’s been more than 25 years since Tom Hanks and Shelley Long showed us the calamitous side of renovating gone wrong in the comedy movie, The Money Pit, but the warnings ring loud and clear today. With a sluggish property market, many homeowners are opting to renovate rather than relocate. Before you hit the hardware […]
5 Basic Home Loans Every New Homeowner Should Know About
Purchasing your first home can be exciting but will usually require that you take out a mortgage loan. In your lifetime, a mortgage loan can become your largest debt, so understanding the process is critical. If you’re looking to finance a home loan in North Sydney, or purchase a home or a investment property in […]
5 Practical Reasons to Consider Refinancing During COVID-19 Outbreak
Whilst refinancing during the COVID-19 outbreak may not be possible for all homeowners and borrowers due their current circumstances, replacing your existing home loan with a new loan is usually a viable option to consider. Refinancing your loan allows you to reduce your monthly payments, lower the interest rate, consolidate debt, and alter the loan […]
The Impact of COVID-19 on the Property Market and Lending Environment
Whether you’re a first home buyer, or planning to upsize, downsize or invest, the COVID-19 coronavirus will have caused some uncertainty over your plans. The Lending Environment Whilst there has been some change in the way we inspect and purchase properties on-line, banks have also amended their lending criteria and are focussing on the stability […]
Property Valuations and COVID-19
The impacts from COVID-19 are yet to be seen in a property market context as transactions generally follow a due diligence process and are less liquid than the public market of the stock exchange. In terms of valuations, we are seeing valuers starting to utilise disclaimers highlighting ‘valuation uncertainty’. Valuers draw upon previous transactions to form opinions of value […]
8 essential steps if your business is in distress
The impact of the last bushfire season and now Covid-19 is causing significant distress to many businesses. For many cash flow has slowed to a trickle or even stopped completely. Here are eight essential steps to take to deal with this type of crisis in your business: 1. Be honest with yourself Lots of people […]
Important Coronavirus Update for Renters
If you are a renter, you may have heard that your landlord can skip their home loan repayments. Unfortunately, this is not accurate. Anyone with a mortgage, if they are experiencing financial hardship, can only delay their home loan repayments, but they still have to pay them in full. In fact, when a property owner […]
Real estate 101 (A cheat sheet)
If buying or selling for the first time, you might be bamboozled by all the real estate jargon bandied about. Here is our A-Z guide to what it all means. Accrued depreciation The total depreciation of a property over a period of time. Usually the difference between the replacement value at purchase and its present […]
Warren Buffett’s Advice on How Investors Should Respond to a Super-Contagious Disease
If there’s one person investors should listen to during a market correction, it’s Warren Buffett. At age 89, Buffett has lived through quite a few downturns. And he’s made out pretty well: His net worth is in the ballpark of $85 billion. Through the years, he has given a lot of great advice in his […]
Reserve Bank slashes interest rates to new low of 0.5pc to counter coronavirus hit
The Reserve Bank has slashed interest rates to a record low of just 0.5 per cent as it seeks to contain the economic fallout from the escalating coronavirus crisis. Key points: The Reserve Bank has slashed interest rates from 0.75 per cent to a fresh record low of 0.5 per cent The RBA has now […]
How to cure the Christmas Debt Hangover
The festive season might be a distant memory but many of us will still be paying for it well into the future. According to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC), more than a third of us put our Christmas gifts on plastic. The Christmas splurge adds to our mounting household debt, already among the […]
RBA announces first cash rate of 2020
The Reserve Bank of Australia has announced its first cash rate decision of the new year. The rate has been kept on hold at its current record low of 0.75%, where it has sat since October 2019. Following the release of the most recent data which showed a lowered unemployment rate and an uptick in the inflation […]
Non-conforming loans: What they are and how to get one
All the major banks have a standard set of rules they use to decide if a loan application is acceptable, or not. A ‘non-conforming’ home loan is simply a term used for home loans designed for people that don’t fit those rules. Loans like these can also be called ‘specialist’ or ‘alternative’ loans (alt doc). […]
Refinancing: Should you or should you not?
Banks are currently offering attractive rates to entice new customers. Is it time to change lenders? Refinancing is the process of replacing an existing mortgage with a new loan. Typically, people refinance their mortgage in order to reduce their monthly payments, lower their interest rate, or change their loan program from an adjustable rate mortgage […]