Athena Home Loans

Discussion in 'Loans & Mortgage Brokers' started by tgan, 9th Jun, 2019.

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  1. tgan

    tgan Active Member

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    Hello fellow investors !
    I am looking at re-financing our loans and have come across Athena, who are offering some seriously great rates. Currently with CBA. Does anybody know much about these guys? Thank you in advance. :)
     
  2. Waterboy

    Waterboy Well-Known Member

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  3. tgan

    tgan Active Member

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    Thank you, but I have googled them. In fact, I have even spoken to them too.

    I was hoping however, that somebody here may have dealt with them, or perhaps a broker here can give their thoughts about this new kid on the block. The interest rates they quote are very attractive, particularly when the big 4 arent offering the best rates around, and i am seriously considering ending my friendship with CBA :D. Thanks in advance. :)
     
  4. datto

    datto Well-Known Member

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    Had a look at their website and, yeah, I like what they're offering. But are interest rates going to get even lower in the near future?
     
  5. jazzsidana

    jazzsidana Well-Known Member

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    They get funding from super sector and non-bank lenders. And are backed by Macquarie bank...

    Rates surely are great with them, but being an investor, I'll look at holistic picture rather than just the rate. And that takes us back to our end goal/strategy which should help decide the lender..

    On scale of 1 to 10 priority , as an investor, rate is more closer to 10 tbh..
     
  6. Joystick

    Joystick New Member

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    Well it depends on whether Athena will follow other lenders in the future when the RBA keeps cutting. Every lender is on same boat.
     
  7. Jamie Moore

    Jamie Moore MORTGAGE BROKER - AUSTRALIA WIDE Business Member

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    The Big 4 are pretty competitive at the moment. Have you hit up CBAs retention team for a discount?

    Cheers

    Jamie
     
  8. tgan

    tgan Active Member

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    Hello Jamie,
    Yes I have spoken to cba. Best they can do is still .75% more than Athena can offer. For a few $100k, doesnt work out too much and the hassle isnt worth it, but when you apply the .75% difference to about $1.3mil, its about a $10k pa savings. And thats a lot in anyones language! Of course, we are talking IO, variable. Thanks, :)
     
  9. Rolf Latham

    Rolf Latham Inciteful (sic) Staff Member Business Plus Member

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    Why is variable your choice of poison ??

    as an aside, does Athena offer a 250 k gov guarantee for money you may have in their offset, like CBA do?

    does Athena have a decent fixed rate product ?

    The fact that you are asking the questions, suggest you have doubts, I know zip about the funder, all I know is you are comparing oranges to carrots because they are the same colour, which is fine, unless you are looking to make a carrot cake with orange juice.............


    ta

    roolf
     
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  10. Arcticfire

    Arcticfire Well-Known Member

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    It’s my understanding that Athena do not offer a offset account for any of there loans ( please correct me if I am wrong ) - that would rule them out for me
     
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  11. tgan

    tgan Active Member

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    Hello Rolf,
    At this point, its variable IO that I am interested in. I am about to come off a 2yr fixed and am not interested in fixing at this stage again. Athena dont offer an offset, and that ok with me because any extra funds i have sit in an account that offsets my ppr, and that will stay with cba. They offer a redraw facility, but at this stage, I have no plans to 'store' money with them in any way. Its only my loans for the investments i have that i am looking to shift, and yes, it is due to rate because a potential saving of $10k is a alot. I dont want any frills with my investment loans.
    Thanks :)
     
  12. Rolf Latham

    Rolf Latham Inciteful (sic) Staff Member Business Plus Member

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    that all makes sense

    what we have an interest in, and what may turn out to be a real current or future need we dont really know, at this time.

    from the above, your expectation is that variable rates will continue to tumble..........which may be correct, certainly for PPOR full priced product.

    Im not so sure this will be the case with low margin product such as this, especially in the IO investment space.

    Many of our clients arent worried about not having a viable fixed option with lender X, but its a duty of care to cover off ........ what happens if the AUD tanks, and funding costs spike, and variable rates "take off"

    The usual answer would be, i will just refi to a lender with a fixed rate product

    Yep, thats the logical exit strategy, but this may be one assumption too far for various reasons

    If 10 k of deductible interest is a lot ( and it is !) then at what rate point is the variable finance risk too high ?

    ta
    rolf
     
  13. Waterboy

    Waterboy Well-Known Member

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    Is Athena even an Authorised Depository Institution? If Not, the "offset" is just a redraw, as there's no actual bank account attached.
     
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  14. Rolf Latham

    Rolf Latham Inciteful (sic) Staff Member Business Plus Member

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    ADIs cant get the end rates that low...... there is usually a trade off

    In 99 % of cases, with " low" rates, they are usually non bank basics with NO offset per se.

    If the loans are fully drawn advances ( ie no money in redraw) most borrowers dont care too much

    Where it gets dicey is where borrowers have their money in redraw, which then becomes the lenders money and is returned to the client at the discretion of the lender. Once most people get what that means, many will not proceed with a non bank for that type of loan.

    ta
    rolf
     
  15. Dean Collins

    Dean Collins Well-Known Member

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    You don't see a problem with the fact that Athena don't offer fixed rates at all?
     
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  16. tgan

    tgan Active Member

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    Hello Dean,
    Should it be a problem? What am i missing? o_O
    I dont see it as a problem because I dont actually wish to fix my loans at this stage.
    Tegan. :)
     
  17. Peter_Tersteeg

    Peter_Tersteeg Mortgage Broker Business Member

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    It could be interpreted that their funding sources are extremely limited. This can lead to all sorts of problems when credit sources for lenders start to dry up in a downturn or recession.

    Or it could mean that their systems are very limited. I appreciate that they're a start up type lender, but this tells me that they may have some serious problems in the future. Not something you really want from a lender managing your money.

    The expression that you, "Get what you pay for", applies to lots of different products and services. People never really think it applies to home loans but I can't see why it wouldn't.

    This is all speculation of course, but I've seen quite a few neo lenders start up, offer cheap rates, then quietly disappear. You don't want an ongoing relationship with any business that disappears.
     
    Last edited: 13th Jun, 2019
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  18. Danielt25

    Danielt25 Well-Known Member

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    Applied to Athena to refinance a (Homepath) CBA IP loan a few weeks ago when RBA announced their first rate reduction. At the time CBA Homepath was 4.67% and Athena 3.75% P&I variable. (loan amount $480k LVR < 70%). Application process was very easy - basically just drag and drop/upload lots of documents into their online application engine)....no interaction with human yet. (I did consider Reduce loans but that seemed very arduous).

    Being self employed, only found out after their initial phone assessment that they would only accept 80% of self employed income (based on tax returns), and applied a serviceability buffer of 7.5% over all existing lending, so loan got declined on not being able to service loan, as the 20% reduction was a 200k difference in serviceability.

    However, post APRA recent changes to buffering, Athena now advise me they will accept 100% of self employed income, happy to do cash out etc, and would only apply serviceability buffer of 2.5% on top of existing lending rates (not 7.5% flat rate), so would now be happy to re-open my loan application, as their calculators indicate I can now service the loan.

    Anyway, have since applied to Ubank for refinance.
     
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  19. Rolf Latham

    Rolf Latham Inciteful (sic) Staff Member Business Plus Member

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    So if they have made credit enquiry on your file, please ask them to remove same. The 7.5 isn normal and acceptable, the 20 % shading to self employed is not, and should have been disclosed before application.

    Coming to think of it, if it failed servicing it probably wasnt even pushed through to a full app ?

    U bank and subsequents may also not be a walk in the park, and the less credit enquiries you have the better

    ta
    rolf
     
  20. Cia

    Cia Well-Known Member

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    How has your Ubank loan process been?