Mortgage - Offset vs Fortnightly Payments

Hi everyone, trying to work out if making fortnightly payments works in my favour or not.

Let’s say I have a $650,000 mortgage broken into:

$200,000 variable
5.30%
$100,000 offset

$450,000 fixed
5.25%

Am I right in assuming I’m better off making repayments monthly as the funds sitting in offset for the full 30 days is more beneficial than reducing mortgage balance (and offset) fortnightly?

If my logic is correct, as long as the variable rate is higher then I’m better off with monthly repayments, however if variable is lower then it favours fortnightly repayments.

Comments

  • +4

    It only makes a difference if you don’t have an offset. In the above situation it doesn’t matter if you choose fortnight vs monthly except for managing cash flow.

    • Monthly marginally better. For fortnightly, interest charge kicks in early and eats away the money a tiny bit.

      If one makes voluntary/extra repayments, yearly option is even better (but not exists).

      • +2

        Does interest charge fortnightly? Banks ive come across charges interest monthly - either at anniversary of settlement date or end the month

        For example https://www.commbank.com.au/support.home-loan.home-loan-inte…

        • OK, I never did fortnightly repayment. The idea is that do not let the interest charge appear early.

          Monthly is still marginally better as more flexible money to use over the whole period.

    • Thanks, this is where I was getting a bit confused.

      Obviously only the variable is offset.
      So I wasn’t sure if there was any benefit to paying the fixed portion more frequently, or if having that fortnightly repayment sitting there offsetting the variable portion for an extra two weeks was better.

  • +2

    Interest is calculated daily, so it makes no difference unless the payments are coming out of an account that is not your offset.

    The real difference in making payments fortnight vs monthly is there is 12 months in a year, so you make 12 monthly payments.
    however there is 26 fortnights in a year, which means you make 1 more monthly payment per annum than you otherwise would.
    Over years you cut off about 2-3 years worth of payments on a 30 year loan.

    • For fortnightly, you carry the balance being taken off a bit by the interest charge for the 2nd fortnight, while it is not for monthly. More frequent repayments may create compounding interest charge in bank's favor.

      It also has something to do with repayment habits, not a one size fitting all method.

    • No it's not, otherwise people have been flocking to fortnightly payment since the beginning of time already. When banks calculate payment per cycle, they work out based on the hypothesis of fix interest and fixed repayments over that 30 year period and the required amount will depend on how often you pay, assuming you don't switch from monthly to fortnightly so the savings is nil if you follow their plan. The extra savings in making payments every 2 weeks is minimal even if you don't have offset, with current rate at 5.2% for every $2000 you put in one day earlier will only save you 28.5c a day or less than $4 a fortnight.
      If you making extra repayments due to the cycle difference (12 month vs 26 fortnight cycle) the savings is because you are being well-disciplined and make extra repayment than the amount required)

  • +1

    As Vice and Garetzs say, there is no difference between fortnightly and monthly if you are paying out of your offset account, and the amount in your offset doen't exceed the value of your variable loan, as it's effectively the same float of cash.

    If you are paying in from an external source (don't do that), fortnightly is marginally better because in the first full month you're paying down from the middle and not the end of the month, so you end up being one payment and half a month ahead. Over 30 years this works out to be worth a few hundred dollars.

    • may as well pay weekly even better, will have $50 after 30 years

  • Thanks everyone, sounds like I was on the right track, but either way there’s not going to be a massive difference.

    I did a comparison of both scenarios in month 1, and paying monthly was a tiny bit better. I just wanted to make sure there weren’t other variables I hadn’t taken into account.

    • In your scenario just look at it as forced savings via paying fortnightly vs self control putting it in offset. We do weekly repayments and into offset as well personally.

  • if mortgage payment for the fixed comes from offset, as variable is higher rate better off paying fixed monthly.

    but its sfa tbh.

    as for the variable, it is irrelevant what frequency you pay.

Login or Join to leave a comment