How to Benefit from Reduced Rates
Overpay on your monthly repayments: just because interest rates decrease, doesn’t mean you need to drop your repayment amount. In fact, why not increase your repayments as if rates were already higher, or alternatively, round up your repayment to the nearest hundred dollars. Just putting an extra $50 on your home loan repayment every month can save you close to $14,000 in interest over the life of a standard loan (based on a loan of $300,000, 5% interest rate and 25 year loan term). Fix your loan: You can lock in all or part of your loan for the long term so you can enjoy a low rate for years to come. A fixed loan provides security against the uncertainty of rate rises, keepingread more
Interest Rate Bulletin May 2015
At its meeting today, the Board decided to lower the cash rate by 25 basis points to 2.0 per cent, effective 6 May 2015. The global economy is expanding at a moderate pace, but commodity prices have declined over the past year, in some cases sharply. These trends appear largely to reflect increased supply, including from Australia. Australia's terms of trade are falling nonetheless. The Federal Reserve is expected to start increasing its policy rate later this year, but some other major central banks are stepping up the pace of unconventional policy measures. Hence, financial conditions remain very accommodative globally, with long-term borrowing rates for sovereigns and creditworthy private borrowersread more
Interest Rate Bulletin April 2015
At its meeting today, the Board decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at 2.25 per cent. Moderate growth in the global economy is expected in 2015, with the US economy continuing to strengthen, even as China's growth slows a little from last year's outcome. Commodity prices have declined over the past year, in some cases sharply. The price of oil in particular is much lower than it was a year ago. These trends appear to reflect a combination of lower growth in demand and, more importantly, significant increases in supply. The much lower levels of energy prices will act to strengthen global output and temporarily to lower CPI inflation rates. Prices for key Australian exports have also been falling andread more