Home loan reviews

Before buying something, many of us look up reviews online to work out if it’s the right product or service for us. As well as looking at reviews from other customers, you may also want to see how the experts analyse the performance of different home loans and mortgage lenders. 

When working out if a particular bank or mortgage lender will be worth joining, it’s often worth comparing their reviews. These are often found on third party review websites and consumer advocacy groups.

Because every home loan is different, you may not always be able to accurately gauge whether a home loan product from a particular bank or lender will be worth it for you and your financial situation. That said, it could give you an impression of what to expect from a bank as their customer, such as their level of customer service and how quickly their staff can resolve any issues that may arise.

There’s no such thing as a one size fits all home loan. Every borrower is in a different financial situation and will need something a little different from their mortgage. Sometimes you need a mortgage expert to crunch the numbers for you and review different mortgage options.

A mortgage broker may be able to help you in this regard. Because brokers work with home loans and mortgage lenders every day, they are intimately familiar with how different home loans work. Depending on your financial situation and personal goals, they can recommend home loan deals that may suit your needs.

One simple way to review home loans for yourself is to look at their cost and their flexibility.

The cost of a home loan includes its interest rate as well as any fees or charges that may apply. Sometimes a home loan with a low interest rate may charge high fees, which could cost you more over the long term.

One way to quickly compare the costs of different home loans is to look at their comparison rate – this figure combines interest charges and standard fees into a single percentage figure.

Flexible home loans tend to offer features and benefits that can affect how you manage your mortgage repayments. The ability to make extra repayments (preferably unlimited extra repayments, without being charged a fee) is often a starting point, as this can let you reduce the interest you’re charged and make progress towards an early exit from your home loan.

Other home loans features can include a redraw facility, which lets you take extra repayments back out of your home loan, and an offset account, which is a bank account where the money you deposit helps to reduce the home loan interest you’re charged.

Keep in mind that the more features and benefits a home loan offers, the more it may cost in interest and fees. Keep this in mind when reviewing your home loan options and making a decision.

RateCity reviews home loans using its Real Time Ratings™ system, which combines the cost and flexibility of home loan products into a single rating out of five stars. 

Assigning star ratings to financial products isn’t a new concept. However, sometimes a star rating is assigned, then the product isn’t reviewed again for six months, a year, or longer. During this time, the lender could raise or lower the interest rates or fees, or add or remove features and benefits, which could change the value the product offers.

This is why Real Time Ratings™ are updated every day – even if the lender alters the deal, the changes will be reflected in the star rating. This helps to ensure that Real Time Ratings™ stay a more accurate way to review home loans. 

An even faster way to review home loans would be to check out our Home Loan Leaderboards. These rank home loans in different categories (e.g. home loans for refinancers, home loans for investors etc.) by their Real Time Ratings™ to help speed up your search for some of the top-rated home loan options.

If a home loan product ranks consistently highly for a long period of time, they may become eligible to be nominated for a RateCity Gold Award. These coveted badges are only found on some of the top-rated financial products, so you can be confident that they may be worth considering when making a home loan decision.