Hi everyone,
I've been looking at options for taking out a loan to buy a house. I've seen that there are some very low rates being offered by online non-bank lenders like www.reduceloans.com.au and www.loans.com.au, whereas the websites for mortgage brokers (e.g. Mortgage Choice) can give indicative rates that are quite a bit higher.
The advice on the OzB forums has generally been that mortgage brokers can get you a better deal than going directly to the banks. But it seems like (and, please correct me if I'm wrong) these online non-bank lenders provide better offers than the banks and, potentially, than the mortgage brokers too. That seems odd, because brokers tell you that their services don't cost you anything, but for some reason they don't seem to be able to get you the rates that these online non-bank lenders are offering. Can someone please help me square this up?
What's the advantage of going with a broker, if you can get a better rate with reduceloans.com.au or loans.com.au? Is there something I'm not fully considering?
I'd really appreciate any tips/advice/clarifications!
From my experience:
Also, there is no direct human contact with these loan applications. You submit and they either say yes or no. There is no time frame - so if you need to settle by a specific time - it could be an issue. For refinance, it is not as bad.
From experience my latest loan I got a quote from 2 different mortgage brokers - same bank, one was better than the other. Then I had a contact within the bank and got the best rate - I basically told him what rate I wanted and he managed to get it done - wasn't a standard one.