Revealed – mortgage changes this week

RateCity.com.au has the latest

Revealed – mortgage changes this week

The cash interest rate hasn’t moved again this October – but several mortgage rates sure did.

Sally Tindall (pictured above), RateCity.com.au research director, said rate cuts continued to drive activity in the mortgage market this week as lenders sharpened select rates in a bid to attract more customers.

As shown in the table above, three lenders – Greater Bank, Newcastle Permanent, and Credit Union SA – cut their fixed rates this week by -0.15 to 0.2%.

“The one piece that didn’t fit in [the] puzzle this week were the two- and four-year fixed rate hikes from big bank NAB for owner-occupiers – the only lender on the RateCity.com.au database to hike fixed rates over the last seven days,” Tindall said.

The move, which she said was likely driven by the increased cost of fixed rate funding, meant ANZ now has the lowest short-term fixed rates out of the big four banks.

See thetables below for the lowest variable and fixed rates, as well as the big four bank advertised rates.

There have also been changes in the loan books of some major lenders as shown by the latest data from APRA.

“APRA statistics released last Friday show Westpac, ANZ, and Macquarie are continuing to grow their loan books, at the expense of Australia’s biggest bank, CBA, whose mortgage lending book fell by 0.3% in August compared to the previous month,” Tindall said.

“Tuesday’s ABS lending indicators recorded a drop in refinancing in the month of August, however, this was down from a record high in July and was still the fourth highest on record. The statistics show the big four banks continue to exert their dominance, securing over 71% of new loans in the month of August. The smaller banks wrote over 25% of the month’s new loans while non-banks wrote just 3.6%.”

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