Alison Fearon from Switcheroo.ie mortgages reviews the benefits of Avant’s new product offering...
BIG NEWS. For the first time in many months a mortgage provider has reduced rates on a range of their products. Avant Money have reduced and simplified the pricing on their ‘One Mortgage’ product with fixed rates from 3.95% with a cash back offer of €1,500 to cover legal costs for switchers over €200k.
Cashback of €1,500
This product may not be for everyone, but it has some eye-catching features which we believe will be particularly attractive for tracker customers:
- Rates from 3.95% for the life of the product (5 – 30 years)
- Option to overpay by 10% each year
- Switchers with a balance over €200k get €1,500 towards their legal switching costs
Great option for tracker mortgage customers
Tracker customers have felt the full brunt of ECB rate rises over the last year and with the benchmark rate now at 3.75% many tracker customers will be paying between 5-6% on their mortgage.
For example, if you had a mortgage of €300k with 15 years left on your tracker of 1.25% over ECB which is now 3.75%, that’s a pay rate of 5% which would be ~€2,370 per month. If you locked in a 15-year One Mortgage with Avant at 3.95%, the same mortgage would be ~€2,210, saving €160 per month or almost €2,000 per year and in addition Avant will pay €1,500 towards the switching legal fees.
Over the last year Switcheroo.ie has been helping tracker mortgage customers, many of whom have even higher rates than this. When they got their original mortgage in the credit boom of the 2000’s, the tracker would have been priced with 1% margin or more. However, many have moved property since then, and when they traded up to a bigger house, they ported the tracker but with an additional cost of 1%. This means the mortgage is 2% over ECB so there will be many tracker customers now paying as high as 6%.
For years the tracker was a low-cost product as it protected customers from banks’ increasing margins. But it does not protect them from rising ECB rates and now many customers have felt the full brunt of the recent ECB rate rises. This new product rate with cashback may just provide the lifeline and certainty that customers are looking for.
If you are considering this or any other mortgage product, be sure to get professional advice and register at Switcheroo.ie
Find out more about Switcheroo's collaboration with MyHome.ie here.
Panda capital Limited T/A Switcheroo is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.
