With brokers now legally required to act in the best interests of borrowers – something banks aren’t required to do – borrowers have been turning to brokers in increasing numbers.

Mortgage brokers settled 59% of all new home loans in the June quarter – a record market share for brokers in the June quarter.

Have you been squirreling away money during the latest round of lockdowns? If so – join the club.

Australian households have been saving an average of 9.7% of their income, according to the most recent data. However, the Reserve Bank has forecast that the saving rate will increase to about 15% by the end of September.

Some interesting new data sheds interesting light on the eternal debate over whether to have a variable or fixed home loan.

Reserve Bank of Australia data for August shows owner-occupiers on three-year fixed loans were paying, on average, 1.26 percentage points less than those on the discounted variable rate.

Almost 598,000 residential properties were sold in the year to August, which is the highest number of annual sales since 2004, according to CoreLogic.

The August result was 42% higher than the year before and 24% higher than the 20-year average.

As many professional long term investors would be aware, before the last decade of low mortgage interest rates there were many reasons for renting and purchasing an investment property versus buying your home as your first property purchase.

Not only have the incredibly low interest rates helped renters and adult children still living at home enter the homeowner market, the massive government incentives over the past few years have enabled many Australians to jump into the property market many years sooner than they probably would have.

You see when interest rates are at traditionally ‘normal’ levels (historically 5%-7%) or higher, a few things happen: