Is ur Homeloan Fixed or Variable????

[GlitterMum]

Hi everyone,
I am doing some research as to whether we should fix or homeloan or not.
Just wondering who out there is doing what with their homeloan.

Is yours fixed or vaiable?
How Long did you fix it for?
What rate are you on with which bank?
Do you pay interest only or principle and interest?

Sorry if you think I am being nosy, its just that I am currently variable with Keystart at 4.99% and I am thinking of Refinancing through to St George and fixing it for 3 years, paying interest only at 6.74%.

I will be paying an extra $194 per F/night to do this but I only need Keystart to have 2 rate rises for me to be paying this with Keystart anyway.

Opinions welcomed

[Doing my best]

We have 95% of ours fixed with ANZ for 5 years (signed just before DD was born), and the remaining is variable. We knew we wouldn't have a lot of extra cash on a single income, but any extra we do come across gets put on the variable loan.

[GlitterMum]

Hi Heather, That is what we are thinking. We are going to have no spare money as we are dropping to 1 income in approx 9 weeks. If rates rise when I am on Mat leave we will be buggered whereas if we fix it now, we know what are repayments are going to be for the next 3 years and I can budget around that.

[Turkish Delight]

we had fixed ours when the interests rates were on the way up 1.5 year ago. Luckily, it is only for 2 years as the interest rates have come down soooo much since and we are kicking ourselves as we are paying so much more. Once the fixed periods end, depending on the rates we might fix again. I think fixing is good as you know the amount due but then if interest rates go down, then it totally sucks

GL

[Sweet Bliss]

We are fixed with St George, it unfixes next year. It has worked out perfectly, as we missed all the rate rises, and it evened out, which has been great while I have been building up a business and having bub number 2 . At the time it actually saved us $50 a week, but once the rates went up it saved us so, so much more.
I have found St George awesome to deal with all along, their service is excellent, I couldn't recommend them enough!! Because we have a home loan with them, we get Gold service, so I have a different number to ring which mean I always get an operator straight away. The one time I did have a complaint regarding fee's on our saving acc, (the manager I spoke to would not help), I actually emailed their complaints department, and within 2 hours I had a call back, and all fee's credited back in my account (it was over $100 worth).

[Cassius2]

we have a variable home loan with bendigo. we havent started it yet! i was tempted to follow in the footsteps of my friend and fix part of the loan but not all of it, but DH was only really comfy with the variable (he was frightened by the fees to 'unfix' and go back to variable if it was needed).

[kawazuki]

we fixed for 3 years,
we decided it was better as we could budget and know how much we haev each week to live off.
especially with going to 1 wage soon like you we have budgeted and know how much we need to pay.

also we were paying more each week but wse also missed out on the 9% p.a rates whenit sky rocketed but missed out on the4.7% low lol

all in all its all evened out

we are also looking into putting our mortgage on pregnant pause we are with ING and this is an option i think but only if you are with fixed.. so we can do that for 6 weeks and save some money

[Doing my best]

Hi Heather, That is what we are thinking. We are going to have no spare money as we are dropping to 1 income in approx 9 weeks. If rates rise when I am on Mat leave we will be buggered whereas if we fix it now, we know what are repayments are going to be for the next 3 years and I can budget around that.

That is the reason we did it. Even though the rates have dropped since we did it, we needed a budget to work on. We knew/know what we need to pay each week. And honsetly if they went up too much before they dropped, we would have been stuffed.

[Amy_jellybean]

Hi Bee84,

We are with Keystart as well....Pain in the rear im sure you'll agree?

We cant fix our rate with keystart and as we only moved into our new house 8 weeks ago we cant do anything about it for a while.

How long have you been with Keystart for? Getting our of their loans in the first 2 years is massive fee's.

If I were you I would be doing what ever you could to get out of Keystart. I dont know what ST George are like for homeloans but I have 2 cars loans with them and they are fantastic with that!

[mrsmac]

We have our loan with St george and I am really happy with them. Sadly we fixed our loan for 3years when we got it in June 2008 at 8.9% (DOH!) But at least we always know what we have to pay, to get out of it was a $46K fee so we are staying with the fixed at that rate, knowing our luck when it unfixes in 2011 interest rates will be way up again! Still its better than a loan i had years ago with XH where we fixed at 12% and were really lucky cause rates were so high.

[Nicambhar]

I was just thinking about this today after hearing that they might start the upward climb towards christmas.. We are on variable and started at about 8.88% I think with this place. We are down to about 5.1% now. We kept our repayments the same are nearly 6 months in advance , good to know if anything ever happened.
Think I will contact the bank over the next few weeks to discuss some options. Think I will try the Money Magazine tip of asking for a better rate than they actually do offer... wish me luck.

[misty]

We are variable. Will only fix some or all if the rates look like they might go over 10% - because then our finances would be VERY tight.

[Lulu]

I had a great chat with a financial dud about this last week. I also missed out on the horrific rate rises with a good fixed rate (WHEW!), but am back on variable.

In short the guy explained (without having a crystal ball of course), that it would probably be best to stay variable right now because it will take AGES for the rate to rise up to what the fixed rate is presently. It's a BIG jump from 4.99 to 6.74, you may as well stay variable and save yourself that extra $200 a fortnight.

Put the extra in the bank for now, you would be mad to fix at such a higher rate if you don't have to pay it. It's not like you are paying extra off the loan.

Don't forget to include any fees for the changeover - if its a few thousand (or even hundred) you are putting yourself behind again, unnecessarily.