1. Real estate.com.au

Australia’s biggest and best real estate and property listing No. 1 real estate site. Real Estate Directory

Website : www.realestate.com.au

2. Domain.com.au

Real Estate for Sale, Rent and Share @ Domain.com.au

Real estate @ Domain.com.au. Houses and apartments for sale or rent all over Australia. …Compare home loan

Website : www.domain.com.au

3. Reiwa.com.au

Real Estate Institute of WA – reiwa.com.au

Real Estate & Property in Perth & Western Australia. Homes for Sale, Rental Properties, Land for Sale, Real Estate Agents, & Real Estate data, FAQ’

Website : www.reiwa.com.au

4. Suburbview.com

Suburb View searches the Suburbs you want, from Australia’s Largest Real Estate sites. Search for your Suburb and if any Real Estate listings are found

Website: http://www.suburbview.com/

5. Homehound.com.au

Search 200000+ real estate listings, homes for sale, rental properties, land for sale and holiday accommodation rentals from 4000 real estate agents on

Website: http://www.homehound.com.au/

Australian Individual Real estate websites

Some other top agencies with their own real estate websites are Ray white , LJ Hooker , eldersrealestate.com.au , harcourts.com.au , mcgrath.com.au , raineandhorne.com.au , remax.com.au

And some related industry Property websites

http://www.open2view.com.au/

Top 10 us real estate websites

Switching  Your mortgage provider ( Bank)

Many smaller mortgage providers and smaller banks ( ING , ANZ ) have come out with offers  to switch to them  from the bigger banks, but obviously people will have to do their research ( and math’s) before switching if its going to be good for them in the long term.

Break Fees and Exit fees

Exit fees are widely considered a major hurdle for borrowers who want to change banks because the fees can outweigh the benefits of lower interest rates at a competing institution.

Ing has a offer on the market already to grab some market share of the loan market. Don from ING says “the deal is, $1000 dollars to switch your bank, move with your feet, come to ING direct.

There has been a huge media blitz recently over bank  rates and people wanting to  shift their home loans to different more cheaper providers and also great offers coming through for people to switch with exit fees being borne by the receiving bank and similar offers. What no one  has talked about and which can be equally important is the “Break fees” for a mortgage loan.

Break fees more than EXIT fees

So what are break fees ?

The dollar amount owed to the bank if you pay out a fixed-interest home loan before the term is up is called a break cost.  .

Break fees are only applicable for fixed rate loans . This is incurred when you have a fixed rate home loan and want to terminate you loan or then refinance you loan with another provider. With break fees,  the longer the time remaining on your fixed loan, the larger the break cost can be. It is very important that you check with your home loan provider  how much you “break fees or costs” would be  before you decide to change your home loan to another provider or pay out the loan

Break fees can also be known as termination fees , prepayment economic cost, Early repayment fee, Early repayment adjustment.

EXIT FEES CAN CONTAIN ALL THE THREE COMPONENTS COSTS AS BELOW

1. Early Termination Fees

Early termination fees may or may not be charged, depending on how long you have had the loan. This fee typically applies for the first five years from the settlement day.

2. Break Costs ( Applicable for fixed loans)

Break fees or Break costs  may or may not be charged, depending on current interest rate situation relative to original interest rate at the time you took out the loan.

3. Other Fees

These include discharge fee, administration fee and any other fees associated with closing your loan.

Julia Gillard has confirmed the corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), will  seek to publish new rules banning the imposition of unfair bank exit fees on mortgages. Mortgage exit fees, which cost customers upward of $900, could soon be scrapped by the banks to increase their competitiveness.

How Break fees work  and calculations

When a bank provides a fixed rate loan they borrow money from the wholesale money markets.Their interest rate is locked in at the same time as your home loan is taken. If interest rates drop and you pay out your fixed loan the bank cannot lend that money again at that higher rate, thus they are losing the difference in interest rate drop. Therefore this cost is passed on to you.

Each bank uses their own complex formula to calculate the break fee but the general concept for the calculation is as follows

Break Cost  =  Amount of loan remaining  X  Loan term left  X  Drop in wholesale interest rates.

The resultant break fee can be thousands of dollars. Therefore it’s very important to make the correct decision  or then check out the break fees with your bank  while termination or refinancing a loan.

Ref:

http://www.canstar.com.au/exit-fees/

Fixed Interest Loans – Break Fees

Mortgage exit fees are fair, say bankers

Investing in the property market is an effective wealth creation strategy and method that many Australians use to get ahead financially and secure their future While managed funds and shares and other type of investments also offer opportunities to increase your wealth, some experts will say that real estate is your best bet in the current market.

Property Vs shares

There are so many reasons to invest in property, including the fact that you’re buying a real and tangible asset (an actual bricks and mortar asset ) which will be always be in demand and can be sold in the market . Stocks and companies and shares, on the other hand can lose all of their value in a day or even get liquidated or closed down. We all have l heard the horror stories, of companies falling over an stock market crashes and your money disappearing in a flash.

 

But as long as there is an increasing population, people will always need a place to live in , which makes property a more stable and attractive option.

Why property investment is better than the stock market and shares investment

Receive possibly two income’s

If you plan your investment right, you could have two income sooner than you think. A property bought at a lower price in a mining area or a area that has suddenly shot up in value will possibly put you into positive gearing and earn you a second income. When you purchase a property at today’s market value, while you hold the investment it is likely to increase in value over time, due to a favourable economy, and population growth. However, you don’t need to sell this asset to make money, you can continue to earn income from the property while you hold it and leverage of it if you want to make further investments or then just keep renting it and let it increase in value

Leveraging and using your property to grow

Property as an asset is much easier to leverage when compared with other investment options like shares due to its volatile and rapid share market fluctuations and volatility. Banks are generally comfortable to lend more for property than a share portfolio as they consider it as a low-risk investment option, and they’re also confident that they can recoup the cost as prices for property and land have historically only gone up wards.

Gain from your tax refund and save money

An investment property is tax deductible, so the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will allow you to claim a tax deduction for most of the expenses you incur when buying and managing your investment property. If you experience a financial loss from this property. Which means that the yearly costs of owning your investment property exceed the annual rental income you receive – you can offset these losses against your income tax.

This strategy is known as negative gearing. Normally, you would receive this tax amount back at the end of the financial year when you complete your tax return, but it is also possible to receive this money in your regular pay thus giving you the added advantage that you need not even pay the difference in the mortgage repayments and rent amounts received. In other words, you can receive the tax saving during the course of the year to provide better cash flow for your daily expenses.

Long-term investment rewards for property Investment

Property values sometimes fall slightly in the short-term, but historically over the long term it always increases in value. It is also less time consuming as investors don’t need to keep up to date with daily share markets

Albany: Lifestyle features, government decisions, urban renewal

Broome: Lifestyle features, boom town, government decisions

Bunbury: Transport infrastructure, boom town, lifestyle features

Geraldton: Boom town, government decisions, transport infrastructure

Joondalup: Government decisions, lifestyle features, transport infrastructure
Karratha: Boom town, government decisions, lifestyle features
Merredin: Boom town, government decisions
Port Hedland: Boom town, government decisions
Rockingham: Ugly ducklings, government decisions, transport infrastructure, lifestyle features
Waroona: Boom town, transport infrastructure

The recently introduced New South Wales Spending spending budget packages out a number of of the most strategic property related initiatives seen to date, along with incentives targeted at enhancing housing supply and affordability instead of simply throwing money at the symptoms.

Stamp duty  Axed in NSW

The most crucial story was that stamp duty, largely considered as the single most inequitable and inefficient taxes around, has become axed for anyone people purchasing a home ‘off the plan’ and under $600,000.
An ‘off the plan’ purchase essentially means buying the house before construction is completed.
At a consumer level the advantage is clearly in the stamp duty savings which could equate up to $22,490 on a home purchase.
Links:
Free Australian Finance Blogs with hosting

NSW GOV MORTGAGE
stamp+duty+calculator

• 
  NSW Home Builders Bonus
• First home benefits
• Housing Construction Acceleration Plan
• Land tax

• Unclaimed money
• Payroll tax annual reconciliation
• Payroll tax monthly calculato

2010 has been a bumpy ride for first home owners and property investors and has left many with the  idea in the mind have they or have they not done the right thing,  those are the people that took out loans and now seeing the rising interest rates ( possibly rising even more ) , investors  who bought at higher prices  when the rush for property was on and the naive people who got suckered into o to buy  a property without doing their math’s and taking into account rising interest rates and now paying the price with mortgage stress.

property sector 2010

Housing finance data released this week showed a further slowdown across the sector.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, owner occupier finance commitments for: construction of new dwellings (-7.3%), purchase of new dwellings (-3.2%), purchase of established dwellings (-2.9%) and total owner occupier loans (-3.4%) all recorded falls during March 2010.  Over the year to March 2010 only commitments for construction of new dwellings has increased, albeit by only a small percentage, 1.6%. Meanwhile, on an annual basis finance for the purchase of new dwellings is down -21.7%, finance for established dwellings is down -26.0% and total owner occupier loans are down -23.3%.

By Rp data

Other News:

CFS and Brookfield scoop property awards

Property Investment Research (PIR) has awarded CFS Retail Property Trust (CFX) as the A-REIT of the Year and Brookfield Secured Bonds as the Product of the Year at the research firm’s annual forum held this month.

Aegis buys Property Investment Research

Research house Aegis Equities Research has bought Property Investment Research (PIR). Aegis plans to continue to run PIR as a separate business, but will expand the services it offers. It will widen the coverage of the property sector from the current 200 companies to the top 500 companies

Majority of people make it simpler for the mortgage brokers to push them into offers that are more advantageous to the broker than the borrower – how?

Prospective home buyers who don’t have any knowledge about how these loans essentially function become inundated by the procedure and terms and conditions. Principal, points, interest only loans, interest rates, FRM and so on can become puzzling.

You should get ready with a loan mortgage calculator prior to contacting mortgage brokers or banks. There are scores of them on the Internet and majority of them are quite simple to use. You should understand your personal financial condition and some fundamental mortgage calculations can create a level playing field for you. This would probably help you save plenty of money.

How can you do it? It’s simple.

Online Mortgage Calculator – The Fundamentals

Monthly payment – possibly the easiest function of a useful online loan mortgage calculator is determining your monthly payment.  

All you require is:

• The interest rate of the loan
• The amount you wish to borrow
• The tenure of the loan – normally in months or years

You would just input these figures into the required fields and submit – the loan mortgage calculator would furnish you with the amount that you have to pay on a monthly basis.

For instance, you wish to borrow 200,000 at 6% for a repayment term of 30 years – your monthly mortgage payment would be $1,199 every month.

Assess the Scenario

A useful online mortgage calculator would not halt there and it should furnish you with some other important figures.

Overall Amount that the Borrower Needs to Pay

In the example given above, the overall amount to be paid on interest and principal by the borrower after 30 years would be $431,640.

Overall Amount of Interest Payable by the Borrower

In the aforesaid example, the overall interest amount payable by the borrower would be $231,640. Around 53% of the overall amount that you spend is on interest.

You should consider that a minor adjustment in your interest rate can significantly affect the overall amount payable by you.

For the above example, if the interest rate changes to 7.5%, it would cause the overall amount to rise significantly. Now the total payment would be $503,280 and $303,280 would simply go towards interest. The monthly payment would be approximately $1,398.

This easy example demonstrates how a 1.5% hike in the interest rate can cost you more than $70,000 throughout the duration of the loan. Of course, you would look for the cheapest rate while you are searching for a home loan. The online loan mortgage calculator equips you with important knowledge before you contact the mortgage brokers or loan officers.

These simple tools would also let you know how much mortgage you can afford. A little bit of research can always help you find a better deal.