News

Fixed rates gather appeal: Mortgage Choice
By Tim Neary
December 6, 2010

The popularity of fixed term home loans rose in every state during November 2010 to hit 10.9% of approvals nationally, according to customer data from Mortgage Choice.

This 29-month high was a considerable increase on the 7.7% reached in October.

Meanwhile, standard variable home loan products rose to 49.3% of approvals and basic variable dropped to 36.1% - the lowest level in two years.

Mortgage Choice spokesperson Kristy Sheppard said Australia's hunger for fixed interest rates is gathering momentum, with demand lifting from 0.88% of home loan approvals in January 2010 to 10.9% in November.

"The popularity of these less flexible products increased 3.2 percentage points last month, indicating rising borrower caution and conservatism in the face of higher interest rates and living costs," she said.

The data also showed the standard variable rate remains the most popular at 49.3% of all approvals, while the basic variable version dropped to 36.1%, a 25-month low.

Sheppard said this was probably due to the increasing popularity of feature-filled professional packages on offer with standard variable home loans.

Line of credit home loans (often popular with investors) fell to 3.7% of approvals from 3.9%.

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