Your Money

How Active Home Loan Management can help you take control of your mortgage

- September 6, 2019 2 MIN READ
home-loan-management

Do you remember the last time you checked your home loan to see if it’s still the best value option for you? Are you still on the lowest interest rate? Does it offer you the kind of flexibility you need at this stage of your life? 

Chances are, you could easily access a better mortgage option with your existing or a new lender, if you had the time and tools. According to a recent report by uno Home Loans, 59 per cent of consumers have never asked their lender or broker for a better rate since they took out their loan. This is quite surprising considering for most of us, a home loan is the biggest financial commitment we ever make, and we spend a significant part of our adult life paying it off. 

So, what’s the solution?

Active Home Loan Management can help you assess if your loan is still the most competitive option you have access to or if it’s time to switch and save. 

Here are the three steps to actively managing your home loan: 

  1. Re-evaluate your home loan given your current situation

According to uno’s research, 53 per cent of homeowners don’t even know their current interest rate. To be on top of your home loan management, you can’t let that happen. You need to periodically re-evaluate your mortgage and check if your ongoing payments are creeping up. Think about it – if your situation has changed and you want to change your repayment structure, could you be better off with a different product?     

  1. Compare your options

If your analysis tells you it’s time to move on from your existing home loan, you need to look for the best savings options. Who’s offering the best rates at the moment? Should you go with an established player, or a new market entrant? Do you want to go with a fixed or variable interest rate? Will there be a refinancing fee? Get all your questions answered before you get to the next stage. 

  1. Move to the best option available to you

And finally, when you’ve shortlisted the top option you have access to, always negotiate with the lender to get a great value deal. 

Does that sound like too much work? Don’t worry – given that most borrowers don’t have the time and technology to efficiently compare the market all the time, uno has founded a new Active Home Loan Management service that can proactively manage your home loan on your behalf. 

To help with this process, uno’s got an innovative tool called loanScore™ that lets you analyse how your loan compares to thousands of other products and see how much you could save by switching. 

Once you sign up for this free service, you would be eligible for support from a dedicated home loan expert, daily monitoring of your loan and proactive alerts when you could save your target amount so you can see if you could be snapping up a better deal. 

What’s more, they’ll also help you negotiate with your current lender or switch to a winning deal.

uno’s loanScore™ tool and Active Home Loan Management service is available at no cost to both existing uno customers and the wider market. For more information, visit www.unohomeloans.com.au.