SA Home Loans News:
SA Home Loans is currently the only non-bank provider of Home Loans in South Africa.
The company is also the only mortgage provider that does not have any agreements with Mortgage Originators.
SA Home Loans Chief Executive, Kevin Penwarden, has questioned how Bond Originators can claim that they find you the best deal if originators do not include SAHL on their panel of home loan providers.
Although most originators have contracts with the four biggest banks as well as others, non have contacts with SA Home Loans (SAHL) because the company does not pay any commission to originators.
Penwarden told persfin.co.za that attempts by SAHL to be listed on two originators’ panels ground to a halt when they wanted higher commissions than SAHL was prepared to pay.
According to Mortgage SA (ooba), one of the largest Mortgage Originators in SA, over the past five to six years Banks have been able to offer borrowers better interest rates than those offered by SAHL.
But Penwarden argues that SAHL offered the cheapest home loan rates for most of the period between 2000 and 2004.
SAHL prices its home loans in a different way to the banks.
SAHL bases its interest rate on the Jibar (Johannesburg interbank lending rate) plus 2.1 percent. Up until Thursday this week (June 1, 2006), the Jibar rate was seven percent, which means the best possible rate SA Home Loans could offer borrowers is 9.1 percent a year.
While banks offer clients – with a similar profile – an interest rate concession of 8.5 percent a year.