Lower mortgage rate is just a phone call away

ONE of my favourite pastimes is paying less interest on my home loan, so all you mortgage customers out there who are up to your eyeballs in debt, really need to sit down, read this and pay close attention.

And for any owner occupiers paying an interest rate with a “4” in front, that’s simply not on – there are dozens of deals in the “3” per cent range with your name written all over them.

A FebFast detox of alcohol and coffee this month has left me with a bit more cash in my pocket so I phoned my lender to up the ante and increase my fortnightly repayments.

I also decided it was time to review my owner occupier home loan interest rate.

I’m on 3.79 per cent and it’s been a little while since I’ve screwed my bank down to a better deal.

Well here we are in 2018 and things change very quickly.

My lender is now offering newbies to the bank the exact same loan product as me with a very attractive rate of 3.68 per cent and that makes me go red in the face.

Why should new customers be rewarded and those like me – I’ve been with my bank for six years now – get done over for being in a long-term relationship.

So I made a quick call to a rival online lender, Ubank, who it turns out could offer me 3.69 per cent.

Then, with a bit of an extra spring in my step I decided to phone back my bank ... one bonus of being a personal finance writer is I know how to talk the lingo with these banker types.

I demanded they drop my rate or I was outta there. Let’s just say it took a 10 minute conversation for me to get my own way.

I was put through to the retention team and told in no uncertain terms my rate of 3.79 per cent was “as good as you are going to get.”

“OK fine,” I said. In a very calm voice I asked the banker to please issue me with a mortgage discharge form and this is when I finally got some action.

“Oh if you can hold on a few minutes I’ll speak to my manager and try one last time to see if there’s anything more we can do.”

And after a quick wait the woman was back on the phone to tell me, “Good news Sophie, we can drop your rate, I can’t believe it but we can drop it to 3.73 per cent.”

Boom! That’s all I needed, a bit of movement and I was done.

No need to send the mortgage discharge form, I’m happy with that.

This will save me about $10 per month in repayments and over the life of my loan more than $3000. OK it’s not massive but better in my pocket than the bank’s.

Moral to the story ... stamp your feet with your lender and if you play your cards right, you’ll probably end up better off.