Debt Consolidation Loans – Are They Really Obtainable?

Debt Consolidation Loans have been talked about for a while now.  Are they worth pursuing or not?

If you consider that debt consolidation loans are much cheaper than conventional debt, then I have to say yes, go for it.

Remember, debt consoldiation loans only work if they are taken on a home loan.  Why?  Well, because your home loan is the cheapest form of debt you will have available.  The interest rate (at worst) is 10.5%, whereas credit cards are close to 20% and personal loans and other accounts are in exess of 25%, so as you can see, doing debt consolidation can save you a ton of money in interest.

Another positive is that you’ll be able to plough the savings back into your bond, which means you’ll pay it off quicker.

If you don’t do that the consolidation is just a quick fix and you’ll be paying off the credit cards and loans over 20 years.

So, when considering debt consolidation loans be sure that you’ll be disciplined enough to take the amount that you’ll be saving each month and putting it back into the bond.

You’ll have less stress and only 1 debt to pay…….relax.

For more information on debt consolidation loans don’t hesitate to contact us.

Should You Refinance SA Home Loan?

 There are many great reasons to refinance your SA home loan and it may be a wise financial decision.

Some of the more popular reasons to refinance include lowering your interest rate, lowering monthly payments, debt consolidation and decreasing the home loan term to build equity quicker.

But, before you decide to refinance you need to the sums to determine if the cost of refinancing would be worth. Keep in mind that if your goal is to save money, you to calculate your break even point.

Your break even point is the point where your savings covers the cost of refinancing SA home loans. As a rule of thumb, the longer you intend on staying in your home the more feasible it will be to consider refinancing. It is a fairly simple calculation to determine your break even point which will help you to figure out when you will start saving money.

Add up the costs (prepayment penalties, registration costs etc.) of refinancing your home loan and divide the total costs by the amount you save each month. This will show you the number of months it will take before you start seeing real savings.

For example, if you refinance SA home loans your closing costs could end up to be R14,500.

Also your mortgage payment have gone down from R4,900 to R4,000 which translates into a R900 monthly saving. Divide the R14,500 by R900 which means that it will take you 16 months to break even. This is a fairly simple explanation, but it should help you to calculate if you should go through the exercise of refinancing your SA home loans or not.

In the above example if you plan on staying in your home for longer than 16 months it will be a wise decision to refinance