Make sure your home loan allows you to exceed the minimum repayments, then use these simple tips to reduce the life of your loan.
Make sure your home loan allows you to exceed the minimum repayments, then use these simple tips to reduce the life of your loan.
By paying half your monthly repayment every fortnight, you take advantage of the 26 fortnights in a calendar year. This means you're effectively making an extra month's repayment across the year, and if you get paid fortnightly, you may not even notice!
You could reduce the amount of interest you pay by linking a transaction account to your eligible variable home loan. You might deposit your salary and any extra savings there. Any money in this account is offset daily against your outstanding loan balance, reducing the interest payable on the home loan.
You may have the option to pay more than your required monthly repayment amount, in order to pay your mortgage off faster and build equity. When the opportunity arises, you can also make lump sum payments. A tax refund is an example of a lump sum that could form an extra repayment.
Note: whilst variable loans do not have a limit of how much you can over pay, there is a prepayment threshold (usually $30,000) for fixed rate loans that you cannot exceed without paying break costs, which can be significant.
1 Not available to companies or trusts.