Security Guarantee : Buying your first home without a deposit When buying your first home, generally you need a deposit, which might be:5% of the purchase price - which must be saved over a minimum of three months and documented through account statements – mortgage...

In light of last night’s Budget there are three areas worthy of comment in relation to property and Home Loans;

1 The Bank Levy : as the Treasurer said in the pre-budget briefing “Cry me a river”

Something you weren’t taught at school … The Power of Leverage.

There is good debt … and there is bad debt. Not once in all my years of mathematics education was I ever taught the difference. In my upbringing, all debt was seen to be “bad”.

At the start of March I wrote … “If you haven’t heard of APRA and ASIC until now – then you soon will”. 

And only two weeks ago I wrote … that “interest only loans to owner occupiers” were of increasing concern.

This is all against the backdrop that Sydney and Melbourne house price is now overheated and that the Reserve Bank’s hands are fairly well tied in terms of using interest rates to dampen them.

The Council of Financial Regulators met yesterday in Sydney (The Financial Review Tues 21st March)

• APRA
• ASIC
• Treasury (meaning the Treasurer and his Department)
• Chaired by The Reserve Bank

Doesn’t that sound like a fun party!! (You might like to background yourself by reading this again … http://bit.ly/2l0JZcI )

Who has the best rate?

 Why has such a simple question become so complicated?

 Once (many years ago) the Reserve Bank set the Official Cash Rate. The Official Cash Rate acted as the accelerator and the brake for the economy – a lower rate stimulated the economy, higher suppressed it.

Is it time to buy Real Estate?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it isn’t much help when trying to anticipate the best time to buy Real Estate. That said, by analyzing past data it is possible to expose telling trends and cycles. And right now, the trend is your friend.

Let’s take a closer look into three particularly interesting and current trends:

• Trend 1: When interest rate goes down, house price goes up
• Trend 2: Sydney Median House Price rises at 7% per annum
• Trend 3: Brisbane Median House follows closely behind Sydney Median House Price 

Sometimes simply understanding the mood of the market can give you the upper hand when buying…

In Brisbane, the current market’s mood is strongly characterised by two, in my opinion, needless worries.  

Worry 1: That rates are about to go up, making it difficult to afford a loan.

Worry 2: That Brisbane house prices have peaked and are about to fall, meaning that buyers will end up paying too much.