Offset mortgages offer an attractive alternative to traditional mortgages and can save you thousands over the long term.
Buying a home is an exciting time, and it is the biggest financial purchase that most people undertake. The majority of homebuyers cannot afford to buy a house outright and it would be impractical to save up the full amount of the house before you bought it, because you would need somewhere to live in the meantime. Therefore, the usual practice is to take out a mortgage a loan secured against the property you are buying.
In the United Kingdom, there are different types of mortgages to choose from, which include a mortgage that is a big success in Australia, from where it originated. It is called an offset mortgage. Basically, offset mortgages use the interest earnt from your savings accounts and current accounts against your mortgage interest; and as a result this reduces your overall mortgage repayments.
With offset mortgages, your mortgage account runs alongside all your other accounts, and the net balance for all the accounts is calculated, normally on a daily basis. The interest is then worked out on the overall total you have in...