Banking & Saving - Regular Aussie credit in loan account 'will build equity'

A person's equity will increase if they put a decent amount of credit into a Commonwealth home loan account, according to the bank.

Investing a regular amount of Aussie credit into a Commonwealth home loan account will increase equity for the customer.

This is one piece of advice from the bank – which offers a range of Commonwealth credit cards – after it announced a host of home loan tips.

James Sheffield, general manager for mortgage wealth, said people should look at how their home loan is set up regularly.

He added: "By reviewing your home loan repayment strategy, you can potentially save hundreds or even thousands of dollars which will ultimately help you pay your home loan off sooner."

And money saved from the repayments could be invested into a savings account which could potentially go towards a child's university fees in the future.

Just changing certain aspects of the way the loan is paid, such as paying fortnightly rather than monthly, can also be improvements to the process for an individual.

One of the tips from the organisation – which includes the Commonwealth Gold Card as one of its products – is to pay off the loan on a fortnightly basis because there are 26 a year and by implementing the process it will be like paying an extra month's rent every 12 months.

"Commonwealth Bank is offering customers a free home loan health check which will show homeowners how they can save money on their home loan and it only takes 15 minutes," Mr Sheffield highlighted.

Using the internet to manage repayments could be another way of making the process easier, as well as having an offset account to put income and savings into.

For people with concerns about how interest rate changes will affect them the company advises splitting the home loan between part variable and part fixed. These concerns may have become reality for some after the Reserve Bank of Australia increased the cash rate by 0.25 percentage points to four per cent earlier this month.

By Joe Letts