Hi All,
Memories of 9% interest rates remain fresh.
Now they're down around 5%.
Is anyone locking in yet? If so, what's the best you've found for, say, 3 or 5 years? Or 10 years even?
If you're not locking in but plan to, when do you think you will? Is there some magic number?
My fear, of-course, is that they'll start heading north again before I've locked in.
cheers,
CarlinRBA leaves rates on hold @ 3.25% today … such a relief !!!
Hi,
I read a quite a number of investors locked themselves in with the Westpac (I think it was them) 4.99% Fixed 3 yrs loan, when it came out few weeks back.
Personally, going to ride the variable rates for a while.
Regards
Daniel LeeWe're paying 5.04% with Comm Bank Wealth Package at the moment.
The five year fixed rate is currently 6.49% with the wealth package.
We're keen to utilise the low variable rate at the moment, but we'd get real interested in locking in for about 5.7% for five years if it became available.
We intend to lock 3 loans in when we think the time is right
I currently have my IP locked in at 7.25 % for another 3 years. So glad i followed the gloomers advice on that one. My PPOR is variable. If i can get a 3 year rate below 5% i will probably grab it as that will see my PPOR loan paid off even if the wife stops working due to kids in the near future. It might go lower but the balance is getting low now so has less of an effect. Wow it feels good having a PPOR mortgage of under 100 a week.
I am also hoping to see the 7 or 10 year rates hit 6%. This opens up a lot of potential positively geared properties for me. Yes i know you can get rates a lot lower and therefore have better cashflow. But the safety of having a positvely geared property fixed for over 7 years during these times would be a nice feeling.
daniellee wrote:Hi,
I read a quite a number of investors locked themselves in with the Westpac (I think it was them) 4.99% Fixed 3 yrs loan, when it came out few weeks back.
Personally, going to ride the variable rates for a while.
Regards
Daniel LeeI tried to get in with Westpac's deal but missed out, the cut off date was one day before i spoke to sales person…disappointing…then the sales person tried to sell me the same deal at 6+ percent…lol
Yeah, with my own situation I need to make contact with a good mortgage broker…I can't leave it to the last minute. It's on my list of priorities, as I don't want to miss the bus again.
Westpac's fixed rate of 4.99% for 3 years looked good, but I vaguely recall the comparison rate (taking into account fees and charges) was quite a jump higher.
Still, anything under 6% looks good after where we've been!
All our loans currently variable.
Problem is that these Special Offers come and go and you need to be on the boil to take advantage of them.
5.94% for 5 years is as about as good as it gets at the mo.
Richard Taylor | Australia's leading private lender
Here's a nice forecast of where the banks are expecting rates to go. Enjoy!
- St. George – "We expect further rate cuts and look for the official cash rate to be at least as low as 2.50% by the end of this year."
- ANZ – "The RBA has undertaken aggressive rate cuts in recent months as part of the global response to the financial crisis and ensuing economic downturn. Markets expect this process to be extended even further in coming months with official cash rates now expected to head towards 2.00% by mid 2009 compared to a peak of 7.25% in late August."
- CBA – The CBA quarterly forecasts are as follows; Mar 09 3.25%, June 09 2.75%, Sept 09 2.75%, Dec 09 2.75%.
- Westpac – "The bulk of the easing (probably around 80%) has already been achieved with the principle of preemptiveness being firmly and appropriately embraced. However we now assess that there are probably only another 125bp's to go." This would mean a cash rate of 2.00%.
- nab – "Our call has been 50-75 bps; it’s now looking more like 25-50bps, with 50 bps possible if the RBA thinks that they won’t get a further reduction in mortgage rates without cutting the cash rate by 50 bps." Nab made a short term prediction just for today's announcement of 3.00% or possibly 2.75% (unfortunately they were wrong).
Must admit the last people I would listen to is a Banker.
13 out of the 14 Investment houses including the 5 major banks had Babcock & Brown as a Buy recommendation in Dec in
FN Arena. Hard to believe that only 1 out of 14 got it right.Richard Taylor | Australia's leading private lender
RT,
Reading your response, one could be forgiven for inferring that you are predicting that interest rates will rise…?
HP
No what i was getting at is if you read the future forecasts from all of the Banks economists on interest rates (and there are few others we could add in there) everyone has a different view.
And these are so called experts with unlimited access to resources.
Richard Taylor | Australia's leading private lender
I agree with richard… bankers are talking rubbish all the time… I still remember that they were talking about hitting double digits interest rates last year…
Babcock and Brown is a dud stock from the start.. a lot of people will suffer from it…
You can check daily 3 or 5 year interest rates at http://www.infochoice.com.au or ratecity.com.au
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