Anyone used Bendigo Bank with any degree of success? My employer is in the process of Refinancing the Business and their PPOR Loans across to BB. As an employee of an employer with more than 5 staff it appears that should I take a mortgage or 3 of mine there I'm "entitled" to a further discounted discount rate. I'm currently looking at options to move my PPOR and 2 IP's anyway to keep lending capped under $1 million (935k spread. Average 70% LVR) and streamline lenders down a bit. PAYG and those 2 rents to go into PPOR offset. Discuss pros and cons.
Is rate the only consideration? If so what are they offering - as I will bet it will not be market leading. Lot's of baity 'offers' like this - the most amusing are the "corporate" offers I see clients referring to occasionally - which they realise aren't that great when they're 0.25-0.5% higher rates than standard discounting.
What Corey said. You can get the same discount in the branch, it's just branded as a special employee discount. There are teacher baker candlestick maker discounts available too. All to the same rate. Btw. Bendigo doesn't use brokers. Adelaide bank merged with them a couple of years ago who do, but the two operate separately. Their rates are generally on the high side. Their point of difference is more about personal service and community.
Thanks Corey and Tobe. No it's not all about rate. More about consolidation. And because I mistakenly refinanced an IP and the PPOR over to Aussie IO rate chasing last year. Ok rate, but no offset. Not ideal for a PPOR, but had to finance 2 new builds in a hurry. Now I have to correct the mistake.
I'd suggest looking more holistically at your finances then - Consolidation can be of value if necessary, especially in terms of mitigating any unnecessary costs. But it's still a matter of looking at the broader picture of your short, medium and long term goals and how your lending structure will facilitate that. What you're really needing is specific lending advice than generic comments on lenders so you don't get a repeat of the Aussie refinance situation. Have a chat with an investment focussed broker who can go through your scenario and provide a balanced review of the options available.
We used Bendigo for close to 12 years with our personal banking and were thrilled with what they did for the local community with the community banking model. That said, we won't use them for any lending after the way they handled our last request. A credit department that makes decisions at (major) odds with manager pre-approval. (Training or communication issue I'm not sure) and very long delays in approvals (had a friend that almost lost a property due to their excessive delays)
I used to work for a bank and the customer package rates on mortgages were better than the employee offering. The discounts on their other baking products were pretty good though which I utilised.
