HomePlus Package Variable Rate (5 Years Interest Only)

Your home loan is a financial product which will be in your life for many years to come, so you want to make sure you are getting the best value, and you can do that by value adding to your home loan product. With a Homeside home loan you can add the HomePlus Package which is a professional package designed to make your home loan easier to use and more affordable.

Features of the HomePlus Package

The HomePlus professional package could suit your home loan needs if you are a first home buyer, you are upgrading your home, or you are refinancing to upgrade your loan, with features such as:

• Variable interest rate. With a variable interest rate you can benefit when official rates drop, and you’ll always know your home loan interest rate is in line with current economic conditions.
• A 100% offset account. When you use your offset account as a savings and transaction account, to house all of your available spare funds, you reduce the interest charged on your loan. When you have a linked 100% offset account, interest is charged only on the balance of your loan amount, less the value in your offset account. As part of the HomePlus Package, the offset account can only be used during a variable rate period.
• Offset transaction account. As your linked offset account is also a transaction account, you get unlimited free transactions in Australia to make deposits, purchases and withdrawals, and free use of NAB ATMs.
• No annual fee credit card. If you qualify you can also receive a NAB credit card with the annual fee waived for the life of the loan, and a 0% interest rate on balance transfers for six months. When you make all of your day to day purchases on your credit card, you can leave more of your funds in your offset account to save you interest – just make sure your credit card is repaid in full each month before the end of the interest free days, and doesn’t charge you interest.
• Low monthly fee. The loan service fee on the HomePlus Package is $10 per month. The standard loan application fee is $600.
• Interest only option. You can make interest only repayments for the first five years of your home loan which can be useful for investment, construction or cash flow purposes.
• Fixed interest rates available. You can choose a fixed interest rate term of between one and five years, during which time your interest rate and repayments won’t change. At the end of the fixed rate period, you can re-fix at the current fixed rate, or vert to the current standard variable rate of your loan.
• Competitive low doc loan interest rates. Typically a low doc home loan will attract higher interest rates because of the higher perceived risk, however, if you are self employed, a contract worker or can’t provide standard documentation, you won’t be penalised with a higher interest rate. However, a low doc loan application fee does apply.
• Discounted variable interest rate. Depending on the amount you borrow and your loan to value ratio, you could be eligible for an interest rate discount, which is valid for the life of your loan.
• Additional repayments. During a variable interest rate period you can make additional repayments for free. If you have chosen a fixed interest rate term, you can make additional repayments up to $20,000 during the fixed rate term.
• Salary sacrifice. You can choose to make salary sacrifice payments into your loan, so you are making repayments with your pre tax dollars, and putting yourself into a lower tax bracket.
• Redraw facility. You can redraw any of the additional repayments you have made for free at any time, and there is a minimum redraw amount of $2,000.
• Repayment holiday. If you are starting a family, returning to study or completing renovations on your home, you can pause your repayments to ease your expenses.

Uses for the HomePlus Package Variable Rate with 5 Years Interest Only

Typically a home loan repayment is made up of both a principle portion and an interest portion and these principle and interest repayments go towards paying down your loan balance, and repaying the interest costs of taking out the loan. However, you can also choose to make interest only repayments, where you pay only the interest which has accumulated in a month, and the original loan balance remains untouched.

Interest only repayments can be useful for:

• Investors. When you take out an investment loan, the interest portion of your repayments is tax deductible, while the principle portion is not. Therefore, for easy of accounting at the end of the year, you may choose to take advantage of the five year interest only repayment option on a variable rate HomePlus Package. This also means less of a financial commitment is required from you each month, and at the end of the interest only period, your property will have appreciated in value and you can sell your investment with the sale price covering the loan amount, and leaving you with the profit, not having had to repay any of the principle balance.
• Owner builders. If you are building or renovating your own home yourself or with the help of a construction crew or project builder, interest only repayments can make the process more affordable since during construction you are probably still paying rent or a mortgage on another house, until your new one is complete. As a construction loan, you can draw down the amounts you need at critical stages of construction – planning, slab, frame, lock up, second fix, completion. You then only pay interest on the amount you have drawn down on at any time.

If you have chosen to use the interest only feature of the HomePlus Package and your circumstances change, you can switch back to principle and interest repayments before five years is up, you simply have to pay a loan modification fee.

• Comparison of Top 10 Credit Card Offers

Top Home Loans

Home Loan	Details	Interest Rate (p.a.)	Comp Rate^ (p.a.)	App Fee / Ongoing Fee	Max LVR	Min & Max Borrowing
Loans.com.au - Dream Catcher​	A home loan offer with a $0 application fee and one of the lowest available home loan interest rates.	5.85%	6.21%	$0 / $375	80%	$50,000 / $750,000
Bankwest Online Home Loan	A low interest rate home loan with a $0 application fee and ongoing maintenance fees. This offer is exclusively available by applying online.	5.97%	5.97%	$0 / $0	80%	$100,000 / $1,000,000
Illawarra Home Loans Bank Beater Home Loan	A low variable rate, beaten down even further by 0.05% p.a. after 5 years.	6.07%	6.35%	$0 / $345	90%	$250,000 / $1,000,000
State Custodians Mortgage Company Standard Variable Offset Loan	Awarded the 2011 Non bank Lender of the Year this feature-packed loan rewards customers with a bonus rate drop of 0.25% after 5 years.	6.02%	6.23%	$0 / $345	95%	$150,000 / $1,000,000