The spring home loan market is heating up, and banks not sweetening their deals with incentives are missing out on customers, one broker says.
Banks’ traditional end-of-year fight for the mortgage market has seen ASB offer a Samsung tablet to new borrowers, and ANZ and National Bank announced this week they would extend their offer of $1000 cash back and $1000 to cover legal fees until the end of January.
But Loan Market adviser John Peterson said Westpac appeared to have pulled back on the special offers. “I believe they are losing deals because of it.”
He said the incentives appealed to first-home buyers in particular. “When I mention [the cash back offer] they seem to get pretty excited about it.”
Westpac spokesman Chris Mirams said it was incorrect to say that Westpac was losing business because it was not offering sweeteners. “Westpac remains very competitive in the market.”
With fewer customers on fixed mortgages, there is more opportunity for banks to fight for each other’s customers. More than half of all borrowers are still on floating mortgages, although that has dropped from the 63% record in April.
For the week ending September 28, $1.08 billion of loan approvals were issued, down from previous weeks where that crept up to almost $1.2 billion.
