Yahoo Finance CBA increases mortgage rates
Australia’s largest bank, the Commonwealth Bank (CBA), has increased some of its longer term fixed rates – but only for those living in their home.
On Friday, CBA upped fixed term rates for owner occupiers while sparing property investors from copping the rate change.
The rate rises of between 0.05 per cent and 0.1 per cent apply to the bank’s owner occupied Principal and Interest three- and four-year fixed rates and its Interest Only three- and five-year fixed rates.
The last time CBA made changes to its fixed rates was on 22 March this year.
Canstar group manager of research and ratings Mitch Watson said the trend of increasing fixed rates has been growing, with Canstar research showing 38 per cent of lenders have increased at least one fixed rate in the past two months.
“CommBank’s changes follow recent increases by NAB and Westpac, only leaving ANZ to not have increased interest rates on its fixed rate loans,” Watson said.
“The price competition amongst the major lenders has clearly eased but this is unlikely to impact demand, with the property market still performing strongly.”
Watson said for anyone still on the fence about fixing their home loan rate, this should be taken as a sign of the tide turning on interest rates.
“Borrowers who may have missed the boat on CommBank’s previous offer can take solace in the fact that these are still historically low interest rates,” he said.
“In this environment where we are starting to see fixed rate increase, borrowers can seek further assurances by purchasing a rate lock which will lock the interest rate in at time of application and any subsequent changes will not impact it.”
At the same time, CBA also launched its new CommBank Green Loan with the product now available for eligible home loan or investment home loan customers.
The Green Loan will allow customers to buy and install eligible clean energy products at the property secured by their existing home loan.
The move means CBA joins 16 other providers in the market offering green loans.
“Australians are becoming more environmentally conscious and aware of the impact of their choices on their carbon footprint,” Watson said.
“CommBank’s new Green Loan provides a financial incentive to choose greener products through access to lower cost borrowing.”
