Buying and Investing

Whether you're buying, investing or both, most property will turn out to be a profitable investment over the long term. Express Capital and The Selector Group are keen to help you achieve your financial goals.

Here are some tip to help pay your home off sooner:

1) Increase your ongoing repayments. By doing this you will be paying more than what is required, and will be able to pay your loan off sooner.

2) Make small one off repayments. The next time you're paying bills and notice that you have an extra $20 in your account, why not pay it to your home loan? All variable rate loans and some fixed loans allow you to make extra payments to help reduce the principal balance of your loan.

Depending on your current principal balance, even paying just that $20 per month extra for the term of the loan could reduce your loan term by one to two years.

3) Consider weekly repayments. Interest is calculated daily, however it is charged monthly. If you are currently paying monthly, consider switching to weekly repayments, as you will be paying the loan off on a more frequent basis. As soon as you make that payment, the interest for the month will automatically be reduced, meaning there will be less interest to pay.

4) Consider using a salary crediting and/or offset account. If your loan has salary crediting, you might consider directing your pay straight into your loan account.

If your loan has an offset account, can have your salary directly deposited into the offset account to automatically reduce the amount of interest you pay.

5) Set a budget. Set a monthly budget, and know what you can and cannot spend. Look at ways you can minimize spending to pay your loan down as much as possible. Based on a loan of $100,000 with an interest rate of 6.99%, over a 30 year term, paying an extra $24 per week, you could cut your loan term down by close to 12 years, saving you approximately $62,000 in interest!