This year, almost half of the world's inhabitants will head to the polls to elect their new governments, including eight of the world’s 10 most populous countries. “In South Africa, we can expect our own election to put the property market into a...
The prevailing interest rate is one of many factors that influence the decisions being made by home buyers and sellers. With interest rates currently high, prospective buyers and sellers must carefully evaluate the implications of their decisions....
Have you fallen into property investing by accident? Are you an existing property investor looking to consolidate, or planning on buying your first property? In this podcast Maya (@mayaonmoney) chats to Miguel Martins of Absa Home Loans, a property...
Like many ad-hoc property investors, Colen has largely fallen into property investment by accident, grabbing opportunities as they arose. He has built a property portfolio of five properties which has put him under financial pressure. His Money...
If you have been paying extra into your home loan and have settled it before the required date, you need to decide whether you wish to keep the mortgage bond in place. The home loan is the credit facility that the bank grants, while the mortgage...
If you have been paying extra into your home loan and have settled it before the required date, you need to decide whether you wish to keep the bond in place or go through the cancellation process. If you want to cancel the bond, then you will be...
In this week’s edition, Maya (@mayaonmoney) and Mapalo (@womanandfinance) explain how you can pay your house off as quickly as your car. Also, In the light of the recent raid by the authorities on CoinIt and Commex Minerals, they discuss the...
I was recently speaking to a young woman who had just bought her first house. She admitted that she had been caught completely off guard by all the expenses she had to incur. She discovered that buying a house is a lot more expensive than just...
The first few years of paying off your home loan can be a very disheartening experience. Despite paying in thousands, if not tens of thousands of rands each month, the amount you still owe hardly budges. In the first few years interest makes up a...
A 23-year-old wants to do the right thing with her money and not end up a casualty of ‘bad debt’. Nthabiseng has just graduated and started her first job. She still lives at home and is currently using her parents’ car. “I am caught in between...
Even a 0.25% reduction in your mortgage rate could save you tens of thousands of rands, but how open is your bank to the discussion? Personal finance blogger Steathy Wealth wrote last year about how he managed to save himself R83Â 000 by asking his bank to reduce his...
Buying a property off plan is often perceived as a smart option for people looking for a good deal. Negotiating directly with developers on your requirements and even sometimes benefiting from a lower price can seem attractive. However, Wilhelm Jonker, business...
Mputla wrote to me with an interesting dilemma. He is 32 years old, married with two children. In 2016, he and his wife bought vacant land in a security estate with cash that they had saved for several years. The plan was to build within four years, using that time to...
Access bonds have different rules so it is important to understand how yours works. Last month Standard Bank customers received notification that they could choose between two different types of access bonds. While this caused some confusion, it highlighted that most...
A lack of retirement savings has seen a significant demand from pensioners to use their homes to access capital, especially for medical costs. A reverse equity mortgage is a special type of home loan that lets you convert a portion of the equity in your home into...
By Rudi Botha, CEO of BetterBond If you have a R1m home loan, payable over 20 years at the current prime interest rate of 10%, you are set to pay more than R1,3m in interest by the time you’ve paid off that bond and the home is finally yours. But if you could pay it...
Your joint mortgage may form part of your partner’s debt review without your consent. If you are married in community of property and your spouse is placed under debt review, so will you, because you share a joint estate which includes all debt. However, what about...
By Lee Bromfield, CEO of FNB Life Many consumers who are eager to finalise the house-buying process often rush into taking out and ceding life insurance without first doing their homework. The ceding of a life policy involves legally transferring a portion of the...
Many of us have either been the victim of unscrupulous building contractors or know someone who has been. My sister was one of those victims; despite hiring what she believed to be a reputable project manager to oversee her renovations, she was left with a building...
If your household income is between R3 501 and R15 000 per month, you could benefit from a government programme that could help you put a foot on the property ladder. As a first-time home buyer in South Africa, it’s not easy getting your foot onto the property ladder....