What Are The Benefits Of A Home Loan Redraw Facility And Offset Account

Attempt to create a loan buffer into your home mortgage by making added monthly payments anytime you can. This will give you certain flexibility should you find yourself in temporary difficulties. You can do this either by means of making additional installments, or saving extra cash into an offset account.

A redraw facility on your home loan allows you to pay in extra money into the mortgage, usually by means of higher ongoing loan monthly payments that you may withdraw again as its needed.

In other words, rather then making (taxable) interest through your savings, putting your savings on the mortgage loan saves you money on your interest costs and helps you pay off your mortgage loan a lot quicker. At the same time, you are still saving for future years. The benefit of this kind of home loan interest charged is often less expensive than the standard variable rate and it does not incur regular fees.

Some, although not all, loan providers charge a fee to use the redraw facility and/or a fee any time you redraw, therefore these types of fees have to be considered. As a result, it’s probably best implemented as a facility to save cash for a large future purchase, like a new vehicle, family vacation or renovations, instead of obtaining cash from it constantly.

These loans are suitable for low to medium salary earners who will put away that little more every month.

Having an offset account, the balance is offset against your mortgage. Money will be put into the account into the Offset Account and you simply use the Offset Account for any EFTPOS, check, internet banking, and credit financial transactions. What is in the Offset Account then comes directly off the mortgage, or 'offsets' the loan amount for interest earned.

As an example, if you have $15,000 in your offset account against your $300,000 loan; you actually pay only interest earned on $285,000. The more funds you keep in the offset account, the more interest earned you save on the home loan. In effect you are generally not earning interest earned on your personal savings, but will be benefiting as everything that will be interest earned on personal savings would be calculated on a reduction on your mortgage loan.

Your offset account can also be used as a savings account for a substantial purchase, or is sometimes used by people to ‘park’ money which they may need to quickly gain access to in the future - as an example, a couple starting a family some time in the next couple of years may take advantage of this option.

These types of loans are suited to people on medium to high money earners, who are disciplined spenders because the more money put into the offset account the quicker you will be able to pay-off your home loan.

To find out more on what sort of redraw facility or an offset loan can benefit you, check with our highly trained and expert home mortgage team at Central Coast Mortgage Brokers, they can help to get you a mortgage which includes a great low rate of interest, and also awesome loan features and benefits.