Home
Home Loans
Articles
Get rid of your mortgage faster

Get rid of your mortgage faster

21 Apr, 2011 - 2 min read

April 21, 2011

If the thought of being chained to your home loan for 30 years sends you into a cold sweat you may want to consider these tips to fast track your way to a peaceful night’s sleep.

Overall, aim to pay off at least an extra month of mortgage repayments per year.
Shop around. Now that the government has abolished home loan exit fees, it could be time to refinance. Home loan calculators will take the leg work out of this process and give you a clear idea of how your current mortgage stacks up.
Pay your mortgage weekly to save on interest. Divide your monthly repayments by 4. This figure will be higher than if the bank calculates it for you as they will most likely simply adjust your payment to reflect the monthly payment.
If you have a 30-year loan, can you reduce it to 25?
If you receive a little something extra such as a tax refund, inheritance or other windfall, resist the temptation to splurge and put it straight into your mortgage.
Create some extra cash a couple of times a year by getting rid of unwanted ‘stuff’. Have a garage sale, or list on eBay and put the money into your home loan.
If you’re on two incomes, it’s a great idea to pay one into the loan and live off the other.

Find out if you can benefit from a 100% offset accounts. An Australian phenomenon, offset accounts are deposit accounts that save you interest by the amount that would have applied if the money in your offset account had been paid into the home loan. If you bank spare money into your offset account, each day it remains there is another day you save on interest.

Related mortgage links

Disclaimer

This article is over two years old, last updated on April 21, 2011. While RateCity makes best efforts to update every important article regularly, the information in this piece may not be as relevant as it once was. Alternatively, please consider checking recent home loans articles.

Compare home loans in Australia

Product database updated 20 Apr, 2024

Fact Checked

Laine Gordon

Head of Public Relations

Laine Gordon is the Head of Public Relations at RateCity and an experienced journalist and research specialist. With a background in news and feature writing, covering finance, media and even food (a passion of hers) at Reed Elsevier publications, Laine brings almost two decades of experience to the team. Having covered major areas of interest to the general public from hip pocket issues to rising and falling interest rates and the impact to mortgages, credit and saving in Australia, she is passionate about researching and telling people’s stories to help others make better decisions about their own finances.