Home Loan Interest Rates
Written by on April 4th, 2010 in Finance.
The biggest factor that makes the difference between home loan categories and offers is the home loan interest rat. The repayment schedule and the monthly costs thus depend on this variable, particularly when there are increases in the rates. The home loan interest rate can be variable, fixed or combined. There are lenders that even provide ‘introductory’ rates that are smaller for the first period of repayment.
When you have a variable home loan interest rate, there are no penalty fees or additional costs in case you want to make additional payments. Plus, the interest rate will drop together with the cash rate. Unfortunately, when it comes to interest rate increases, there can be no prediction or relation with the variation of the interest rate. The more rewarding situation from this perspective is the fixed interest rate, which remains locked at the same level for up to five years. You thus have the chance to better plan your finances because you know exactly what you are going to pay every month.
With a fixed home loan interest rate, you cannot take advantage of the rate decrease, plus, there may be restrictions in case you want to make a repayment in advance. As for the introductory home loan interest rate, lenders keep it very low for one or two years. The bad part is that such interest rates come with restrictions such as high termination fees, plus, the interest rate may be very high at the end of the introductory period.
Mention must be made that any comparison between loan offers is difficult or almost impossible given the difference in the home loan interest rate and the existence or absence of additional fees. Normally all well-reputed financial institutions have a comparison rate that should be used officially when shopping around for the best offer. For instance, a certain home loan may have an interest rate of 8.0% but a comparison rate of 8.5% due to supplementary charges. For a more complex understanding of the loan offer, do consider the rest of the features, besides the home loan interest rates.
Do not neglect to carefully check the termination fees, because they can give you a very nasty surprise. A cheap loan will no longer be cheap if you have to pay a huge sum of money just to terminate it sooner. 2% for early termination is quite a lot if you want to be rid of the loan repayment sooner.