Marissa Schulze

So I think most people are sort of on the same page in terms of

the fact that the growth is going to slow, but we are just going to reach a new normal level, particularly in Adelaide.

That's definitely the expectation.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's a great question, Craig, because really, if you're wanting to buy property or wanting to increase your investment portfolio and invest in property and you're wanting to take some equity out to do some renovations or go on a holiday once borders actually open.

uh your borrowing capacity is essential to understand so the first one is servicing so effectively what servicing is it's about your capacity to repay the loan repayments and meet your obligations under the contract so what the banks look for here is they want to see what your income and expenses are first and foremost

And then they're also looking at things like your assets and liabilities.

So really what they're trying to determine is, can you actually afford the loan repayments for the loan that you're applying for?

With this servicing, they actually apply some buffer rates.

So sometimes we have clients that come and see us and they're comfortably meeting their loan repayments.

But when the banks look at them for a refinance or for increasing the amount of debt that they have,

they're actually going to apply what they call assessment rates to the calculation and basically calculate it as if the interest rate is 3% or more higher than what the current interest rate is, if that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely.

So when someone applies for a loan application, one of the first things that the lenders will look at is all of their liabilities and their existing financial commitments.

And most people are aware of that and consider, you know, there are things like your existing home loans, your existing investment loans, your existing personal loans and car loans.

But a lot of people don't realise how much their credit cards will affect them.

For example, the lenders will look at the credit card limit rather than the credit card balance.

So if you're wanting to increase your borrowing capacity, a really good tip is to reduce your credit card limits.

Another great tip is to have a look at what you're doing outside of credit cards.

So if you're using after pay or another form of buy now, pay later, short term finance, these are really can be quite bad for your servicing.