Mortgage Choice partners with Athena Home Loans to deliver game-changing new home loan offering
Mortgage Choice and Athena Home Loans partner to offer fair-value loan products designed to help Australians pay off their mortgages faster.
Mortgage Choice and Athena Home Loans have joined forces to deliver a suite of innovative home loan products designed to help Australian borrowers avoid ‘loyalty tax’ and pay down their home loans faster.
Following the October 2022 announcement of the partnership between Mortgage Choice, REA Group and Athena, today Mortgage Choice officially launched the ‘Mortgage Choice Freedom, powered by Athena’ product suite.
Recently named Australia’s number one brokerage, and with more than 1,000 brokers across the country, Mortgage Choice is uniquely positioned to deliver this ground-breaking home loan offering to Australian borrowers.
Mortgage Choice CEO Anthony Waldron said, “Mortgages are widely recognised as the biggest monthly expense for households in Australia. With 12 interest rate rises since May 2022, and more potentially on the horizon, it’s more important than ever that lenders are giving borrowers a fair go.
“Historically, Australian banks haven’t rewarded borrowers for their loyalty – in fact, long-term customers often watch in disbelief as the bank they’ve been loyal to for years offers new customers much lower rates and other deals like cashback offers. With Mortgage Choice Freedom, it won’t matter if you’re an existing customer or new, you’ll receive the same rate on a like-for-like variable loan.”
Reserve Bank data reveals that customers loyal to their lender are paying an average of 41 basis points more on their mortgage than new customers. It’s estimated that this ‘loyalty tax’ will cost Australians $8.9 billion this year alone.
Recent Mortgage Choice research showed that 88% of mortgage holders believe lenders should give existing customers the same rates and deals as new customers.
Mortgage Choice Freedom rewards customers through a dynamic pricing structure that automatically lowers the borrower’s interest rate as the size of the mortgage reduces relative to the initial purchase price of their property. Keeping these new customer rates for the life of the loan can mean significant savings of up to $1,799 per year, or up to $44,998 across the life of a loan.
“Borrowers are doing it tough right now – there are hundreds of thousands of people moving from low fixed rates to variable rates that are double or triple that fixed rate – calling this an adjustment would be an understatement. The end of these fixed rates will see a significant impact on household budgets. For an average $600,000 mortgage, it’s going to mean around a $20,000 increase in repayments per year. And many of those who have experienced rapid increases in their variable rates over the past 12 months now feel trapped by their current lender because they are unable to refinance elsewhere.”
The three Mortgage Choice Freedom products, which were co-designed with Mortgage Choice brokers, have been designed to meet the needs of different types of borrowers, providing them with a competitive rate that reduces over time. The Mortgage Choice Freedom Saver, Mortgage Choice Freedom Flex and Mortgage Choice Freedom Fixed products offer Athena’s revolutionary home loan features such as rate match for new and existing customers, automatic rate drops as a customer reduces their loan to value ratio, and no lender fees.
Athena Home Loans CEO and Co-Founder Nathan Walsh said, “This is a major milestone for Athena and we’re proud to be scaling our mission to help more Australians pay down their home loan faster with the Mortgage Choice and REA Group partnership.
“The Mortgage Choice Freedom product suite has the goodness of Athena’s game-changing customer value proposition at its core, delivered to consumers through one of the most trusted and experienced brands in the industry. This powerful partnership will continue our mission to change home loans for good.”
Mr Waldron said, “These three Mortgage Choice Freedom products are just the beginning. We are working with Athena on an ambitious roadmap and are looking forward to delivering even more value for Australian borrowers over the coming months.”
