Commonwealth Increasing Fixed rate Mortgages

[Andrew Williams]

Commonwealth Bank are to increase thier Fixed Rate Mortgages for terms of between 2 - 15 years effective 21st April.

They have put this down to the cost of wholesale funds increasing.

Is it the end of the rate drops?

It will be interesting to see if the other Banks will move this way also.



Andy

[wizzywozza]

Bloody banks!

Had my son on the phone earlier today, he had been pre-approved for a mortgage through a broker, made an offer on a house, paid for a building survey, the insurance, and of course paid the $1000 deposit. The bank took so long to process his application that in the meantime they had changed their criteria and now my son can't get his mortgage so has just kissed goodbye to $1600 thus setting him back even further from getting his first home. He was told that he 'might' be able to get a mortgage now by paying a higher interest rate and adding over $200 a month to the repayments but there's no guarantee.

Seems the banks have no redress to their customers or the government, and change interest rates and mortgage criteria willy nilly as it suits them.

[ShaunWilson]

Yup,
Same happened to us. We signed contract to build new house, building contractor took so long getting the contract all drawn up to our final liking, the bank then asked for a new valuation, ( as we were not willing to pay the price the builder was asking for AC and floor coverings, now doing it ourselves). The day before our land was due to settle, the bank said the valuation had come back, but due to taking more than 6 months from when we were told we had mortgage, we had to re-apply. They then said no (homestart0which is part of NAB), we then had to go through our broker again, who has got us the same mortgage rates and amount from....NAB. Just a different dept aparentley. So only advice i would give is to get mortgage agreed prior to making any offers on any property.

Shaun

[Andrew Williams]

Unfortunately the Banks have the ability to do this at the moment.

The Financial crisis has put Banks here in an even stronger position. A lot of the smaller/non Bank lenders have left the market and a lot of people now want a strong brand name.

About 90% ish of all mortgages are going to the top Banks and being that these Banks have merged or taken over smaller ones then there is not a lot of competition out there.


Andy