Is your employee package really the best deal?
Today we want to clear up some of the myths surrounding special employee benefits and discounts for your home loan.
Often when we are discussing home loan options with people they mention that because they work at a certain company (Fonterra, Teachers, Police etc) they get a special discount with a certain bank. This is generally fuelled by some free muffins and a talk over morning tea at their workplace from one of the local bank managers.
Although all banks do provide certain workplace packages to a variety of different businesses it is always important to check how these deals sit with other deals in the marketplace and that's where we can help.
For example we had a client, who is employed as a teacher, recently who had eaten the free muffins and listened to bank X's pitch that she could expect 0.25% discount off any fixed rate offered by them if she got her home loan through that bank. She duly had her loan approved and the bank offered her the 0.25% discount along with $1500 cash back and she was pleased.
However a friend of hers recommended that she get in touch with My Mortgage to assess whether this really was a good deal. The client was in an excellent position to borrow and every bank wanted her business. We ended up gaining loan approvals from two other banks which had better deals than bank X and in the end we used these as leverage to get bank X to give her 0.40% off her fixed rate.
The total savings over the first two years of her home loan were about $1800. Not bad considering we did all of the leg work for her free of charge and she did not have the hassle of dealing with the other banks.
So regardless of how special a bank may make you feel by saying they offer a great deal for people working in your company it is always best to check what else is out there. All of those special deals still apply to you when we work on your behalf and often we can secure a better deal in the market.
If you hear of anyone discussing workplace discounts for home loans then send them our way
Adam, Claire and Greg and the My Mortgage team