There can be no doubt about it – buying a house is the single most largest purchase that you'll make in a lifetime. The Australian dream of owning your own place continues to burn brightly, but it's getting harder than ever to get your foot onto the first rung of the property ladder.
Whether you're looking to buy in the bright lights of Sydney, or have your eye on a place in rural Northern Territory, house prices rise year-on-year, with a record number of properties nudging the million dollar mark – and plenty more soaring far higher than that.
A loan to help, not hinder
Such figures are enough to make your head spin, but don't let it put you off in your quest to have a place to call your own. At CAPE, our brand of customer-owned banking can help you make that first step – with our home loan options, buying a new property needn't be the headache that it might seem.
At CAPE, you can borrow up to 95 per cent of the property value.
Even so, you'll still have to do a little homework and put in some groundwork before you're handed the keys to your first Australian home. Firstly, you'll have to make sure that you have enough savings squirreled away for a deposit. While the standard deposit in Australia is a whopping 20 per cent of the asking price as a deposit, at CAPE, you can borrow up to 95 per cent of the property value, so maybe all you have to find is a meagre five per cent – far easier! Or we can show you, with a little bit of assistance from the family, how you can get into a property with the family not having to cough up a single dollar. We call it the Family Step-Up.
You're also going to have to think about just where you should buy your first Australian home. Do you fancy an apartment among the vibrant buzz of the city, or a quiet spot in the regional areas? Of course, a place in the city is always going to be closer to everything that the area has to offer, but properties in the CBD often come with a higher price.
Indeed, the median prices for a property in each of Australia's state capitals hovers around the $550,000 mark. Once you leave the metropolitan areas, those prices fall by some $150,000, so you've a lot to consider before putting an offer in.
The CAPE crusaders
Once you've got a place in mind and have a deposit behind you, be sure to get in touch with the friendly team at CAPE. We'll talk you through the home loan options available to you, as well as which best suits your needs. For example, we offer both interest-only and fixed-rate interest loans, and offset options are also available. You may not be entirely sure what your best loan option is yet, and that's completely fine – we'll help you select the most suitable.
What's more, loan interest rates at CAPE are among the most competitive to be found. Our standard variable home loan rate is just 5.04 per cent. Currently, the comparison rate stands at 5.07 per cent (based on a $150,000 loan over 25 years). Even the comparison rate, though, pales into insignificance when compared to the standard variable rates on offer from two of the Big Four.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia's standard variable home loan comparison interest rate stands at at 5.37 per cent, per annum, and Westpac's is higher at 5.43 per cent per annum. Yet another reason to turn your back on the major banks and see what customer-owned banking can do for you.
Taking out a home loan represents a big step towards owning your own place, but it's still quite an undertaking. Therefore, it's best to make sure that you know what's what before you apply, so get in touch with us today.
