She's On The Money - How to Buy Property in 2026: Everything You Need to Know Before Getting a Mortgage

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Starting point is 00:00:42 knowledge and resources for you to thrive she's on the money she's on the money Hello and welcome to She's On The Money, the podcast that's all about making your financial dreams become a reality. And for a lot of us, that's about owning our own home. And I know a lot of you are feeling really unsure about what buying a home even looks like right now. The rules literally keep changing and it's hard to know if you're doing the right thing and you've probably got so many questions which is like low-key kind of helpful and I feel like we're in the right place and that's why we are here today, not just me, we are here today because you're in very good hands with this topic. I'm Victoria Devine and I happen to own the mortgage broking company

Starting point is 00:01:46 Zella Money and I am joined by one of our mortgage queens, Miss Jacqueline Walsh. Welcome back to the show, Jack. Thank you. I am very excited for this because your episodes honestly pop off. Like, I don't know what you're doing. Are you just sending it to your mom and she's listening to it over and over and over again? Because they are very popular. We obviously adore having you in the studio. And so many of our community are currently on the journey or have just set the goal of buying their first home in 2026 or even 2027. And they're on that trajectory of like, well, what does it look like to buy my first home? Or maybe they're wanting to add to their portfolio and investment property. So they have a lot of questions for you. Are you ready?

Starting point is 00:02:29 I hope so. All right. So I went out to the community. I said, Jack's back. She's coming on the show. What questions have you got? And this time we did get a few that we've covered on previous episodes with you. So I want to flag that I will put all of the episodes that you've been in, in the show notes to make sure that everybody can listen to those because we don't want to just create content that doubles up. I mean, it would be more efficient, wouldn't it? If we just like keep pumping out episodes with the same questions, we'd do so much less work. And we basically did a whole refinancing masterclass, I'd say, historically. That was the most recent

Starting point is 00:03:01 one that we dropped. Obviously that will be in the show notes too, for those of you who want to know all about refinancing. Now, Jack, you are a very busy woman. And since last year, I would say that the mortgage broking world has changed significantly. Like we yell about it a lot in our first week first. Maybe we swear, but like we're very classy women. We would never. So along with getting to the community's questions, I just want to speak about the changes that you've been seeing as well, just so our community can be really prepared. So let's start with, I guess, the biggest headline over the last 12 months. And that is spicy. The government's 5% deposit rule. Yes. People have questions. People have opinions. People are nervous. What's changed?

Starting point is 00:03:45 So since October 1st, 2025, the government has scrapped the income threshold, which is a major change, meaning that anyone that's purchasing their first property now can go through this scheme. Obviously, the normal rules apply being an Australian citizen or permanent resident, you still need to hold the minimum of 5% of the purchase price. But it just means that more people can go into that scheme now with having a little deposit and avoiding the lender's mortgage insurance so it is a big big big change meaning a lot more people are eligible for this yeah and another big change I guess would be the property price cap threshold so Victoria's gone from 800 to 900 whereas the biggest jumps probably in Sydney at 900 to 1.5 mil so yeah that was yeah

Starting point is 00:04:35 that was like I thought that was diabolical but it probably really needed to happen a long time And I would argue that Melbourne didn't get enough. Agreed. Like we look at the Melbourne property prices and what our clients are buying for and how we're trying to make it happen. And like, honestly, in the nicest, most relatable way, because I know that a lot of people are listening to this and they're like, Victoria, I can't service a $900,000 mortgage to begin with.

Starting point is 00:04:58 Like when we look at the average, the average property price in Melbourne is more than a million dollars. And you're saying that the average isn't the first home buyers. Like what's that about? And I think there's a lot of fear that has come up around this. And as of October, like that popped up and obviously it was announced before it happened. And we had all of our clients asking a million questions and then all of our clients seeing it the way that we saw it. So we saw it as great for a short period of time, probably the month or two after this initiative gets

Starting point is 00:05:34 implemented, a whole heap of first home buyers are going to enter the market with 5% and be able to buy properties that are on par with what the price of them was. Now everyone's settled in, they've worked out what their 5% is. They're competing with the people that had 20%. And what that's doing is just driving house prices up. And that's why I said, oh, people have opinions. We are one of those peoples. And I think it's making people really nervous. And there's, I think, still a lot of fear around what this particular scheme means for, you know, you as a first home buyer moving into the market in 2026 or you saving your first deposit now going well by 2027 is this going to be completely unobtainable yeah do you think that this fear is really valid or not valid

Starting point is 00:06:21 there is a lot of fear out there definitely um that's undeniable we have you know clients that are worried that they're going to miss out on properties or worry about being outbid at auctions which it is happening like to eliminate the fear it's going to come down to getting in touch with your bank or broker as soon as possible and being on the same page, really. Like, are we looking at obtaining a pre-approval for your absolute maximum, knowing that we don't really want to go up to that, but at least you, you know, if you find the property, you can go in a little bit higher and we don't need to go that back and forth and, you know, take longer in getting back to you. Or are you wanting to stick with a budget, just go in at one purchase price and then just

Starting point is 00:06:59 call it a day. If you're going to put a, I guess your own budget on that purchase price, you probably really need to be looking at a lower purchase price when you're doing your searches, just so it is giving you that little bit of a wiggle room that you can go in a little bit over what the advertised prices are because there is so much competitiveness now. Yeah. And I'm not saying it's right. There's a lot of conversation I'd like to have about the real estate industry as a whole. And we can have that conversation another time because I've got thoughts and feelings that would make a lot of people very mad. But I also think, and I've said this on the podcast before, one of my favorite tips when looking for your first home is to stop looking for

Starting point is 00:07:41 your first home and start clicking on the sold tab on domain on real estate. Because if you start looking for your first home, one, we get an emotional connection to these properties really quickly. You might see it's listed between 900 or let's use the scheme barriers. It's maybe listed between 750 and 850. And you go, well, I could absolutely afford that. Even if I went top and I go 850, the reality is that property is probably going to go over, not because it's not valued at that amount, but because the competition for that property is so fierce. And there are other first-time buyers that are willing to use their whole $900,000 in Melbourne or their whole $1.5 million dollars in Sydney. And that's where your competition is going to come from because they're

Starting point is 00:08:23 like, well, I can outbid them and they do. And that forces competition. So there, I mean, there are definitely cases of real estate agents under quoting things, but the best thing you can do before you even start looking for your dream home is to go to the realestate.com.au website and click on sold same with domain and just look at what are these properties actually going for, because you'll see the listed sale prices and then you can gain an expectation of like, okay, so I thought I could afford a three bedroom villa and it actually looks like they're selling for X. What does that look like? And set your budget expectations from that. And then we go shopping on the flip side so that when you start seeing properties listed, you go eight, 50 money

Starting point is 00:09:06 win, like that's going to work for my personal situation. You can go actually in that area, I'm watching all of these other properties go for a hundred grand over that. So you can kind of set your own expectations because I'm finding that a lot of people who are not doing that, it's so exciting. It really is. You're going to auctions, like you're putting offers on houses and it happens again and again and again, and you get outbid and you feel like it's fruitless. We actually needed to set more realistic expectations from the start. And that hurts to hear because you're like, well, it should sell for between what it's listed for. that is just not the reality of the industry at this point in time. And that is heartbreaking

Starting point is 00:09:45 and frustrating. But if you want to get into the market, that's the advice that you need. Of course. Yeah. So we need to be a little bit blunt and be like, cool. Don't look at that. Look at this or Hey, set your expectation here. And if we go over, you've got a little bit of wiggle room money win. Um, because I know as well, clients who have been like, Oh yeah, I stopped bidding because we'd set this personal, you know, budget of $825 and we stopped there. And you go, you were pre-approved up to $850, like you totally could have had it.

Starting point is 00:10:16 You had that wiggle room. You had that wiggle room. You didn't want to do it. I totally get that. But now you're regretting it because you're coming back to me going, the market's moved again. It's gone up again. Why didn't I just offer $850?

Starting point is 00:10:26 And it can be really hard, but that's where you need a good relationship with your mortgage broker so you can have these conversations of like, is that reasonable? Should I go over? Should I not? what does this look like? Because I think so many of us, and this is me ranting about property, I'm sorry, but I think so many of us get stuck on what that listing price is and go, well, the top end was $850. It can't be worth more than that.

Starting point is 00:10:47 And the market determines what it's worth, not the real estate's valuation, unfortunately. So back to the 5% rule, because like I could talk about real estate all day, Jack. I know you could too. What does that mean for everything else that's available for first home buyers? Like, can you stack the 5% rule with like the first home owners grants? Do they cancel each other out? How does it all fit together like a puzzle? Yeah, you can use them all together. So for instance, you could be using the first home super saver scheme with the 5% deposit scheme and even obtain the first home owners grant. So that's three stacked together. That's obviously... First home super saver scheme? Do it. Yes. Oh, I can't give advice. No. Consider whether it is

Starting point is 00:11:34 relevant for your circumstances? You could stack all those together. Obviously that particular scenario would be for an own occupied purchase that you're going to be living in. And it would need to be a newly built dwelling or an off the plan purchase to obtain that first home owner's grant. But the most common one that we would say would be the first home guarantee scheme, which is now called the 5% deposit scheme, along with the first home super saver scheme. So yes, you can stack them. I love that. So we like not just habit stacking, we are mortgage like scheme stacking which is very sexy the more the merrier yeah you were on the pod last year what else has changed since you were last in the studio because you're the one dealing with the banks every day

Starting point is 00:12:14 I just get to sit and listen to you argue on the phone which is really fun I mean I do have to get involved when like they're not listening and I go hello it's me no no no no no and they go oh shit she's got a title like it's not even because I know more I don't um but you see this stuff every single day and it's the stuff that most people don't see. What changes are you seeing within the banks themselves? I feel like this deserves an eye roll and I feel like you're probably... The banks are going to come for you. Yeah, you probably know what I'm going to say. I do, I stacked this. Banks turnaround times. This is infuriating and is at an all-time high And it's just crazy at the moment. So yeah, that's probably been the biggest change I'd say

Starting point is 00:13:01 in the last few months around banks turnaround times. Some banks are at 16 to 21 days. That's astronomical. Yeah. Unheard of. Like actually- For an assessment. From my perspective, unacceptable as well. And you've got to think as well, like that's the bank's turnaround times. The broker also needs time to, you know, package that application, get all your documents, submit it, like get it

Starting point is 00:13:24 ready for assessment. Yeah, that's not the work we do. Yeah. So that's like, that's the bank's turnaround times plus your broker's turnaround times as well. So they are through the roof at the moment. I do see that they are trying to combat that turnaround time with now the changes of bringing in some banks, bringing in the auto assessed pre-approvals. But I don't like that. Yeah. Hire more staff to do more thorough reviews. I don't know if you heard me in the office this week but I called a few banks and said but why don't you just hire more stuff like just so that you can actually do the work in the time frame that you promised because these turnaround times just having a bitch about our own industry these turnaround times are not the turnaround

Starting point is 00:14:08 times they promise us no they're the reality they will say oh yeah like we have a history of getting back to clients within the first seven days and you go that's so sexy no worries I'll tell my client that yeah and then the reality is it pushes out to 16 days which then makes us look incompetent because we're going back to clients being like, hey, we know this should be coming through tomorrow based on the bank's timeframes, but we're not seeing this happen with other clients. So we want to set your expectations here. And they're like, oh, no worries. Then when it doesn't happen, they're like, but the bank said, and I think so many of us get hung up on the fact that, well, banks, they're big authorities. Why would they lie?

Starting point is 00:14:44 And we're the middleman. And unfortunately, they make the rules and they can change those turnaround times every single day so it's based on the influx of applications that are coming in so one day it could be four days the next day it could be 16 days yeah and since October last year when that five percent deposit scheme came in I feel like every first home buyer and their dog wants to get their pre-approval sorted ASAP which has meant that people who were on their journey of saving for their first home and they were saving and they maybe were trying to get to 10% to use LMI, or maybe they were trying to get to their 20% who thought, oh, this is probably still another 12 to 18 months off. Like we've got heaps of time. That actually changed for them. And

Starting point is 00:15:27 they're in the market as of today because they already have their 5%. They are now competing with the other clients that we have who have 20% deposits. And that doesn't change anything about, you know, them being in a better off or worse off position, but it doubles our applications, which as a business, fantastic. We want more clients. We want more of you pre-approved, But that means the banks are overloaded with people going, oh, I actually, you know, can get this early. And so now all of those people who can get in early are now overloading the banks. Yes. It's not even just an influx from the 5% deposit scheme. It's also just an influx for clients looking at pre-approval, even outside of that scheme, just the way that the market is going

Starting point is 00:16:07 at the moment. So it's just the spring is always notorious for, you know, the busiest time of the year with houses going on the market. So it just happens that they've started this on October 1st last year and now it's rolling into the busiest period. I was like, are you guys kidding? Like do this at the start of winter. You and I both know. July 1st. Just do it then. Yeah. And that would have made sense. I don't think anyone would have been like, oh, that timing doesn't make sense because it's a new financial year, new financial policy. Like we would have eaten that up and believed it in a time that's a little bit more quiet. Yeah. You are setting everyone up for failure government yeah to combat this I would be saying to speak with your broker around what it is

Starting point is 00:16:49 that you're trying to achieve because yes there's going to be you know some banks that are gridlocked and some banks have a longer turnaround time but if you're not planning on going to an auction or you're an 80% lend and you've got a 20% deposit or whatever your scenario is we can go through different banks that still like some banks still have like a four-hour turnaround but that's not within the scheme so it just comes down to your personal scenario and where we can place you but that's why more so than ever a broker is going to be your best bet to go to because they're the ones that can see across the board and sort of pinpoint and work out where to park your application whereas if you walk into a bank it's sorry we're at 16 days therefore that auction that you wanted

Starting point is 00:17:32 to go to next weekend you're not going to with pre-approval you're not going to had you gone to a broker, we could have gone through option A, B and C. This is our first option. Our fallback option is now option B. Let's get you the pre-approval in place to go to that auction next week and then let's talk if you're successful. Yeah. And other banks aren't going to like hearing this, but this is just the way that we put our clients in the best possible position, right? And the best possible position for you as a client is to come to us before you're planning to go to an auction, before you find your dream home. Maybe you've got your deposit it. And you're like, oh, well, I'll just see how I go. And I'll talk to a broker if something comes

Starting point is 00:18:07 up. Like at that point, if you've started shopping, see a broker already, get your pre-approval in the bank so that if your dream property does come up and they're like, oh, auction Saturday, you're prepared. But the thing that we do as well is, and I want to say, unfortunately, but like, fortunately, like we thrive under pressure, but also we know that you stress under pressure. So like, we don't want this situation, but we have so many clients who come to us and go, I need an urgent appointment with a mortgage broker because I found my dream house and it's going to auction on Saturday. And that's where you, Jack, you know, you're talking about option A, B, and C. What that might look like is your priority bank is ComBank. And

Starting point is 00:18:45 you might say, I really want to be with ComBank. And I go, great. Their turnaround time right now is completely pushed out. There's absolutely no chance that we can get an application in and pre-approval for you to be comfortable to go to auction. Here's this, I don't know, So second band bank, yes, their interest rate is higher, but all of their assessment criteria is very similar to CommBank. They have a four hour turnaround. We can get you that pre-approval. You can go shopping. We know that if you are successful at that auction, this second rate bank is going to give you the loan. But during that settlement period and that period of time between you and actually getting the keys and having to pay the money, we'll go back to CommBank.

Starting point is 00:19:25 We will process that in a longer period of time. We'll get you the loan that you want and everything will be shiny. But one of the things that I just, I cannot stress enough is please do not ever go to auction, especially in such a changing market and changing world in finance and bid without pre-approval. No, you absolutely have to have a pre-approval if you're even considering going to auction. Yeah. But that's why I always say the second that you're even thinking, like I've said this before, the second that you're even thinking about purchasing, get in touch with a broker because if you have time on your side, it eliminates the stress on both ends. Like you don't need to be following us up because you're stressed. We

Starting point is 00:20:06 don't need to be chasing you up for documents. We have that leeway for things to take a little bit longer. And with the ever-changing market of the turnaround times, that's not going to be an issue if we are ready to go with enough time. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So just if any banks were listening to that and you've seen us withdraw applications. It's just, it's not you, it's you. Anyway, Jack, I want to take a quick break so that we don't keep sooking about banks. And then we can get into things like using equity, what a guarantor loan is going to look like. And I really want to know the tips that you have to reduce the life of a mortgage. So guys, don't go anywhere. All right, Jack, we are back. Let's talk about equity because this came up more

Starting point is 00:20:55 than anything else. I feel like it can be a really confusing concept. Like I've got equity. What part of my equity can I use? Can I use my equity for this, that or the other? And because there were so many questions and Jacqueline doesn't know this yet, but I am going to make her come back on the show and do a whole episode on the who, what, why, when, where, how of equity, because it can be confusing, but I promise it's not. And so many people are unaware of what you can use your equity for. So like, it's not just property purchases, like, and I'm not endorsing this, but you can use it for business loans. You can use it for a car. You can use it for a caravan. You could use it for literally anything, but I would like you to consider wealth creation as

Starting point is 00:21:40 your primary. But for now, let's just touch on what most of the questions were about. Jack, can you explain how to use equity to buy another property and how does that actually work? So I own a property, got some equity in it. What do I do if I wanted to buy another house? Okay. So to explain it, you are essentially drawing on the equity in your existing property. Now, the equity, I guess there's a bit of a misconception that people think, well, okay, my LVR, my loan to value ratio is only sitting at 60%. Therefore, I've got 40% of equity. No, no, no. No. You technically do.

Starting point is 00:22:22 No, no, no. As in, it's yours. Yes. However- Like if you sold the house, that's what you would get. Correct. This is correct. Yeah. If you sold the house, you will walk away with that 40%. That's the cashola that you would walk away with ideally. Yes, that is yours. That's what you own. That's the difference between

Starting point is 00:22:35 your property value and what the loan is owing. But that's not what the banks like to see because they're conservative and they need to cover their own butts before helping you. Correct. So the bank will allow you to draw up to an 80% LVR, so loan to value ratio, which means in this instance, if your loan was at 60% already, that means I'm drawing it up to 80%. That means we've got 20% equity that we can now pull out and use towards a new purchase. We can obviously go over that 80% if need be. We can't go up to 100% but we can go above 80%. It can be a little bit flexy, a little bit sometimes but you've got to think and this is the way that I've always explained it to clients, the bank always wants

Starting point is 00:23:14 to see you kind of still quote have the deposit sitting against the mortgage. Yes. So that's why that 20% is there and it's not saying oh that 20% is what you bought for because you might have bought for 10% with LVR or you might have bought for 5% and gone through a scheme but they like to be conservative. So they love to see the 20% number and that's where we usually sit. Yeah. They deem it as less risky in their eyes if they can sit the LVR at 80%. So like I said, you can draw above an 80% LVR, but that's when you're deemed as a higher risk. And they will, in some cases, charge lenders mortgage insurance to do that. So going back to it, if we were to draw out, say the 20% equity from 60 up to 80, and we use that for the new purchase, there's

Starting point is 00:23:59 two ways that you can structure it. You can obviously put both the existing property and the new purchase securities against both loans, or you can just draw out, I like to say, so take out those funds from the existing property in a separate loan and use those towards the deposit of the new property. So you would have, say on the new purchase, a loan up to 80% on that property. And then the additional amount that you're putting down towards that purchase would come from the equity in your existing property. Yeah. So you're basically like left pocket, right pocket. Correct. And it's not a pretend deposit. It's real money, but the bank is never going to give you. You do have to pay it back, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the bank

Starting point is 00:24:36 is never going to go, yeah, draw down 20%. Here's the cash, go shopping. Like there has to be an agreement in place where the equity has been drawn down and that will actually just go straight to the other one. So you could, in theory and not in theory, in reality, you could have your first home, have the exact circumstances Jack has just outlined and not have to save another dollar to get into your next house because, well, your equity increased over time and that's your deposit. Yeah. So we are drawing a deposit from your first house, giving it to the next house. And honestly, that's how people create property portfolios where over time, great, first one has equity drawn down. Second one, no worries. Wait a few years until that's got equity and we can use that property

Starting point is 00:25:19 to get into our next property. And like, it does become a complicated web because there's obviously things you might want to refinance and change or pay down some of the equity. And like, there's just a lot that your broker can take you through, but in theory, it's kind of like a chain. And that's exciting. Yeah. And I think it's really fun. Now I'm going to stop talking about equity because I already promised the community that I'd give them a whole episode on it. And I honestly, I just think equity is so sexy. Like, oh my goodness. Can we talk about guarantor loans? for a hot second because I feel like they're are they dirty words still in mortgage broking no not to us but like so many people on tiktok and so many people on instagram like

Starting point is 00:25:59 everyone had a guarantor loan or like they'll be like oh Jacqueline bought her first house and this isn't Jack's situation Jacqueline bought her first house and I found out that she actually didn't save any of her deposits she just got a guarantor loan from her parents as though you're not servicing a full ass mortgage on your own. Like sit down. Anyway, one of the most popular topics in our community is guarantor loans, especially when it comes to what's it look like, how, when, where. Can you just quickly explain what a guarantor loan is to us? Yes. So having a guarantor is essentially taking the guarantor's property and using that as additional security on your purchase or your loan to avoid lender's mortgage insurance. I guess this is for anyone

Starting point is 00:26:47 that's above an 80% LVR, so loan to value ratio, to avoid that LMI charge. And again, the bank deeming you as less risk. So let's just say I'm buying my first home and I want to use my parents' property. The bank is going to look, or I want to use my parents as guarantor. The bank's going to look at them though. They have to have equity, don't they? They can't have just a property and it's like a brand new mortgage and they go, oh, we'll guarantor, just sign us up. Like they have to have equity in their property. And it's a bit different to using your own equity where the equity never actually gets taken out of your mom and dad's loan. And I say mom and dad, because that's the most popular guarantor system. In fact,

Starting point is 00:27:28 it's probably one of the only ones we really see. They don't take the money out of your mom and dad's mortgage. They just put what's called a caveat over the property to say, if they sell, part of this was actually the deposit for this house over there. So that's the way it limits people. But for a lot of parents, they're not planning on selling. They're not planning on doing anything. And they're like, I'd love to give my kids a guarantor loan to get them into property sooner without impacting you financially. Like we have had situations where parents are like, it must be nice, but parents come to us with their child and say, I want to help them get into a property, I've got a deposit saved for them. And we backflip and go, that's so nice.

Starting point is 00:28:07 Can we actually just use the equity in your property? And you put that, that cash into the share market, or you put that cash against your own mortgage because it's, it comes out in the wash. Like you're in a better, everyone's in a better circumstance because of that. I feel like it's a little bit taboo still. And it really frustrates me because people think, oh, well, you're getting a leg up when I can't. It's so common. It's more, it's much more common than people think. And it's not just common. Like, I'm really sorry, but now I'm a parent. I'm like, I would do anything for my kid. And like, if Harvey comes to me one day and says, mom, I really want to buy my first home. So if I think you're financially responsible and you know,

Starting point is 00:28:49 I'm going to be that crazy mom that's like, show me some savings habits. Like, I'm not just going to give you a guarantor loan, sir. Like that's not how this house works, but I want to put you in the best possible financial position. I didn't work this hard so that I couldn't give my kids a leg up. And I think everyone wants that. And if you are looking at it going, well, it's unfair. The whole entire world is unfair. I'm so sorry, but like let people do what they need to do. And yes, it's just the market, but I think it's an important concept to understand as well, because your parents don't have to cough up any cash. It doesn't financially impact them.

Starting point is 00:29:24 There are a lot of things that would happen before a guarantor would be called up and one of them would be you selling your house because you can't afford it. And I guess around having a guarantor, like a lot of people tend to think that the parent's property needs to be paid off in full. No.

Starting point is 00:29:40 They can still have a loan, but drawing back to the equity question that you asked, again, similar to like if you were drawing equity on your new purchase, there does still need to be, it depends which bank you go with, but there does still need to be 10, sorry, 20 to 30% in equity available on that guarantor's property as a minimum. Yeah. I want to pivot a little bit because we were saying before the most common type of guarantor is a mom and dad guarantoring a child. But we had a lot of questions come through from community members wondering, well, what if I want to have my partner as a

Starting point is 00:30:16 guarantor on my mortgage instead of my parents. What do you think about that question? I sort of have to know the scenario a little bit more, but I ask because when you say partner, are they married? Are they de facto? That will come into it as well. If you're married, then yes, your partner can be a guarantor to you if that's that you're wanting to purchase an investment property in your name solely or wanting to purchase a holiday property, whatever it may be. But in some cases, some banks will not allow if you are in a de facto relationship for them to guarantor that purchase. Yeah, absolutely. Now, I promised before, or I said to everyone before, we're going to talk about like how to pay off your mortgage sooner. So let's jump to that,

Starting point is 00:31:00 because I think that's an exciting topic that all of us want to hear how to get rid of our mortgage sooner. I don't think anyone's been like, no, I'd love to hold on to this for a little bit longer. Like it's just so nice to be in this relationship with this bank. What are your favorite ways to reduce the life of a mortgage? I would say making extra repayments and it can be as little as possible, but almost just like rounding up your mortgage repayment for that month or that week, because every little bit does help and it's going to shave off years off your mortgage, which again is going to save thousands of dollars. Yeah. Yeah. And you can Google mortgage repayment calculator and have a bit of a play around with that once you have your mortgage as

Starting point is 00:31:39 well. Like it doesn't necessarily need to be from a specific bank. My favorite ones are the ones on the Money Smart website because they're not tied to a bank and it's just literally the numbers and they're not going to be like, click here and give us your email so that we can send you your results. Like I just get out of my emails, but you put in your interest rate, how much you're paying, what you own, what it's worth, all of that fun stuff. And then you can play with the numbers. to go, oh, well, what would an extra $100 a month on this mortgage look like? And it will spit it out. And I think you'll be surprised at how much it cuts off because I think a lot of people are like a hundred bucks on a mortgage, but my friend, your mortgage is for 30 years, a hundred bucks.

Starting point is 00:32:19 And that makes a huge difference. Yeah. And more often than not, you have to check the terms and conditions of your particular mortgage, but more often than not, those extra repayments go directly to the principal, not to the interest part of the loan. And they'll build up in redraw. Exactly. and then you end up in a better position. So definitely worth looking into. Are there any other ways that you could potentially reduce your mortgage? I'd say making sure that you're using your offsets effectively. Yeah. I mean, a lot of the time people will have one offset, which is fine if that's how you prefer to do your banking or if you only need one. But when you have multiple, they are all working 100% for you. So if you've got, you know, even if it's $3,000 sitting in

Starting point is 00:33:01 one account or $500 in another account and you've got your bulk savings in another account like all of that could be working towards your mortgage and therefore more of your payment is going towards the principal and therefore saving you know money in interest as well so making sure that they are set up correctly and if we need to open up more if we can with that bank because you do have other accounts that you might have your salary going into another you might even have your salary going into another bank completely and then transferring that across you know why don't we speak to HR and get that, you know, your salary paid into an offset account directly because offsets are calculated daily. So every little bit does help. It does. And that would be an additional one I

Starting point is 00:33:41 want to throw in there. So the interest on your mortgage is, and I need to caveat that there might be mortgages where this doesn't happen, but I haven't seen them recently, is calculated on a daily basis. So if you want to save even more off your mortgage, instead of making the monthly repayment, you could start making weekly repayments and set that up with your bank because that can actually shave off years on your mortgage as well. Because you end up making extra repayments over that year, which again builds up in redraw. And look, that money, the money that is building up in redraw is your money. It is additional funds that you have paid. So if you do need to access that, you can draw that back out. But obviously, ideally,

Starting point is 00:34:23 the whole point is to keep it in there and pay off your mortgage sooner. Yeah. All right. And I reckon this is a good question to end on because I could talk about mortgages literally forever. And that's why I've already promised the community that you're coming back. Cause I'm like, no, we're not done. But I also only had like an hour with Jack today or 40 minutes, I think with you today, I always hear from our community that this is something that is a really big priority for them. And it's paying off their mortgage as soon as possible, like smashing it down, not investing, just paying their mortgage off as aggressively as possible. is that something you recommend? That's a tough question. I think again, it comes down to what do

Starting point is 00:35:03 you do? What do I do? Yeah. Are you just smashing your mortgage off? You would be. She's so conservative. I love it. Do you want my honest answer? Yes or no? Well, that's why I'm asking because we can't tell people not to do it, but we can share our personal experiences, Jacqueline. It's going to come down to what you're trying to achieve, like what your goals are. If your goals are to reduce your payments, pay off your home loan, own it outright as soon as possible. And that's a goal. Fantastic. If your goal is to purchase an investment property, you might not be looking to direct all of those extra funds that you do have into that mortgage. You might be wanting to build up a deposit for the next purchase or, you know, pop that in

Starting point is 00:35:46 redraw, which we can again, draw out for the next purchase. We might want to keep your mortgage repayments down on the existing property to free up cash flow in a servicing perspective for the new purchase of the investment. So it just depends what your goals are. If you're wanting to buy more property, smashing out and paying off your home loan might not be the direction that you need to go. Fair. My goal in life is to get like filthy rich. Like I have no shame in saying that. And so therefore my husband and I just pay the minimum on our mortgage. We do have an offset or we have multiple offset accounts and that's where all our cash lives because I want every single dollar that comes into my accounts to be working while it's with me and then we are investing outside of that

Starting point is 00:36:30 and that's a priority for me because for me knowing what I know time in the market when it comes to our share portfolio or you know if we ever wanted to buy an investment property which is not aligned to our goals at this point is a priority so I want to make sure that I am in the market for as long as possible. And that means not aggressively paying off our mortgage. I'd actually prefer to get to 65 and yeah, like I'm planning on paying it off in the timeframe that I was given. Don't worry. We're not slacking, but like I'd prefer to get to 65, have a bang and share portfolio. And also at that point, nearly have paid off my mortgage, then get to the age of 40, maybe 45, have a completely paid off house, but no other assets. And then I'm

Starting point is 00:37:13 starting from there with wealth creation. So there's lots of episodes on that and we'll link it all in the show notes. But Miss Jacqueline Walsh, thank you so much for that. And for anyone who wants more, Jack is going to be back for that episode. I promised I'll ask her about it later. It will be on equity. So I'll get her prepping and calling some banks and asking a lot of questions because I would say that was by far the biggest theme that we had when we did a Q&A. so thanks in advance for agreeing to that. No worries. Thank you. And if you have a friend or a family member who's been thinking about buying, feel free to share this episode with them. Plus, make sure you hit subscribe so that you don't miss any of the episodes that we have

Starting point is 00:37:53 coming up this year, because we've got some really good stuff planned. I'm biased, but I was involved. Anyway, have a good week, guys. the advice shared on she's on the money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances she's on the money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision if you do choose to buy a financial product read the pds tmd and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN 321 649 27708 AFSL 451 289.

She's On The Money - How to Buy Property in 2026: Everything You Need to Know Before Getting a Mortgage

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