In one of the most dramatic changes to property depreciation legislation in more than 15 years, Parliament has passed the Treasury Laws Amendment (Housing Tax Integrity) Bill 2017 as at Wednesday 15th November 2017, with the Bill now legislation. The new legislation means owners of second-hand residential properties (where contracts exchanged after 7:30pm on the 9th [...]
Big banks are set to announce tougher measures to crack down on high rise apartment purchases including blacklisting more than 100 Brisbane suburbs, doubling the minimum apartment to qualify for funding, evidence of rental cash flows and tough new valuation criteria. Lenders such as Adelaide Bank are introducing "minimum funding requirements" requiring apartments to have their own bathrooms, [...]
HOME loan customers are reveling in record-low interest rates but many could be missing out on nabbing rock-bottom deals by failing to pay attention. The Reserve Bank of Australia has kept the cash rate on hold today at 1.5 percent — where it has sat since August last year — but there are five mortgage [...]
The latest annual report on 'fat cat' superannuation and managed funds by online investment platform, Stockspot, shows an 18 percent fall in the number of poor-value funds from last year. However, funds owned by the big banks and AMP continue to dominate the ranks of the fat cats with high fees and poor performance; though NAB has fallen out of the [...]
TAX incentives for pre-retirees have been watered down dramatically this year but there’s still a chance to grab extra cash and other financial benefits. Lucrative transition to retirement pensions, which allowed people aged over 56 to slash their tax while boosting their nest egg, took a hit in the July 1 superannuation changes when the government [...]
SCAMMERS impersonating government agencies are sharpening their methods to steal money and information from consumers. A fresh warning has come from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission about a surge in National Broadband Network impersonators, and follows similar warnings about scammers claiming to be from the Australian Taxation Office and Centrelink. RELATED: Tax scammers take a [...]
Australians will find it harder to take out new home loans with the Commonwealth Bank after the lender tightened repayment tests for borrowers. When customers with an existing CBA home loan apply for a new home loan, the bank will assess their ability to continue to repay the existing home loan in the same way they [...]
Westpac is the latest lender to put up interest rates, increasing pressure on interest-only borrowers. The bank yesterday announced it would increase rates on interest-only variable home loans by 34 basis points to 5.83%, and on interest-only investor loans by 34 basis points to 6.30%. In a move designed to lure customers into switching to a [...]
There is a hidden and worrying risk lurking for a particular set of mortgage borrowers, whose level of financial stress is about to get a whole lot worse. It's those home owners with interest-only loans that are now increasingly under the pump - with National Australia Bank the latest of the big four to announce big [...]
BANKS are using cashback deals and bonus Frequent Flyer points to lure in new mortgage customers but it could leave them worse off. Lenders are using incentives including cashbacks, doubling the value of Frequent Flyer points earned on settlement, waiving application fees and dishing out gifts cards to snare new business, analysis by financial comparison [...]
