St George Portfolio Loan

[monoply]

Hi,

Im just opening a St George Portfolio Loan, to purhase a property through at HDT.

Just wondering if anyone has a St George Portfolio Loan, and if they have any feedback (good or bad) or anything useful they have learnt, regarding this product, from experience.

Cheers
mono

[Rolf Latham]

Hiya Mono

Portfolio is OK, requires a monthly interest payment though and from that point of view isnt as flex as most other LOCs that allow interest capitalisation.

In the STG stable I prefer the Standard Variable Investment loan with 15 years IO and 100 % Interest repayment offset. Allows you to isolate your money from the deductible debt and sav interest IF you have cash to park.

Aside from that STG is savvy when it comes to HDTs, the only other beef I have with them is that you will pay fees every time you sneeze.

ta
rolf

[yadreamin]

Jeeeeeeez Monopoly

I thought you were happy with the perfume website and the shoe thingy for your christmas shopping!!!!!!!!!
Oh well l quess a girl just loves shopping.


cheers yadreamin

[monoply]

Jeeeeeeez Monopoly

I thought you were happy with the perfume website and the shoe thingy for your christmas shopping!!!!!!!!!
Oh well l quess a girl just loves shopping.


cheers yadreamin

Hi yadreamin.

I think you have me confused with Jo.
But she probably does love shopping. :)

Cheers
mono

[lizzie]

my broker put my on the stg portfolio loan and i've been pretty happy with it. the monthly interest payment isn't a problem - just have to remember once a month to transfer the amount out of loc and immediately transfer it back in - that sufices in their books as a payment.

[lukentel]

Monopoly I had one years ago w/St. G... 2000-@2003.

I found that they were great to get you in the door and then afterwards the actual flexability of it wasnt all sunshine as their back office was brutal.

When I wanted to do a see-saw (i.e. a transfer from one account to another) it took forever - I had to fill in a form, they sent it to processing, a doc got posted out... it would have been quicker to refinance... which I ended up doing.

Not sure if they have picked up their game but it may be a question you want to ask about now in case you need to do something done quickly.

This was before packaging where you'd pay them an annual fee. Then they started charging me fees on the sub accounts of $10 per account which was a bit much to bear considering the structure. Check that out as well as looking thru the stuff from Rolf it doesnt look like theyve changed. The ongoings are obviously important as they do impact your/my ROI.

I've now progressed thru loans, and got a product thru CBA called a Viridian Addvantage. Way more flexible, compared to what I had. I can call my bank guy and have a variation letter done on the spot. allows up to 10 sub accounts on the one facility. I think it is retail only and not available thru brokers - Rolf or Simon may be able to advise otherwise. Its pretty good as I have one account in the name of my trust w/me & wife as guarantor and can transfer the other limits across (see-sawing) without any questions.

Also can allocate the wife as a guarantor over the entire facility so I can open a new sub account and put it in my name w/her as guarantor, the name of my trust w/us as guarnator, as long as I'm under my credit limit I dont think they care whose name the account is in as long as it isnt in a pty ltd.

I'm not saying its the best at CBA by any stretch but it does work for me better. But thats just me.

But that being said I dont know if St. George offer a similar facility or have changed their game as my dealings with them were admittedly years ago. But to pay the normal wealth pkg fee thru CBA and have no fees on my subaccounts destroyed the St george offer say if you had 10 thru St G - that equals .... (fill in blank)

Also in qld St G is non existent and no branch network which also had other bearings. Dont know how you go in melb.

[monoply]

With the St George Portfolio loan, I dont plan to have any sub accounts.
This loan will be for investing only, and I will operate it all from the one account.

With regard to the monthly fees, my broker told me I could avoid this, if I made excess payments. I was planning to do this, but have not read about it anywhere, so I may need to verify I can avoid these.

If I can avoid the monthly fees, and sub-account fees, it was looking fairly good.


Cheers
mono

[crest133]

Quoting STG rates as of 7 Nov 05 - 7.42 % for Portfolio Loan.
Doesn't sound too competitive to me.
What's a good rate at the moment ?

crest133

[monoply]

Think the rate is 6.72 if you borrow more than 250k, which is fairly competitive.

[lukentel]

Mono
If it helps, my loc portion is 6.72% variable no package, no monthly, no estab fees so pretty similar, the variable portion is 0.70 below. While I dont like to get into total debts, the relationship I have w/CBA is pretty good.

What I didnt know about until recently is that they take the margin loan limit into account with their packaging so if say you had a 50k loan + a 500k margin loan they look at you as if you have 550k all up. Thus with their package over $500k gets 0.60 off Doesnt matter what you owe in the margin loan.

I think at the end you have to look at one vs. the other and then for fun stir up your broker (I'm sure they love that).

maybe rolf or one of the other guys can give you a second opinion or more info as I'm kind of totally/part owned by CBA.

[cmpalmer]

Friends!

Dumb question: Which bank is CBA?

Chris

[Davidr]

Correct. CBA = "Which Bank" :eek:

Friends!

Dumb question: Which bank is CBA?

Chris

[sparky23]

Hi cmpalmer

If you still don't get it its the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and don't touch them with a barge pole!

Sparky

[MJK]

Mono,

I have been using STG porfolio for 10 years and have had no trouble. Last week I settled a sale of one of my security properties, closed two of 4 sub accounts, had debt levels rebalanced and had limits varied and two new valuations come into play all on one day!
And guesswhat ............................They did it perfectly!!! :D

You've just got to be clear with them. Dont bother talking to your local branch you need to talk to the right department when you need something done ( head office). You need to manage your bank. Put it in writing etc..

Also if your a good customer ( ie: have plenty of borrowings ) they make you a GOLD customer and give you a hot line that is answered, without waiting, by a human being. :D :D

For the purposes you have described I think the PL will be OK.

MJK :)

[A95]

Hi MJK,

...Also if your a good customer ( ie: have plenty of borrowings ) they make you a GOLD customer and give you a hot line that is answered, without waiting, by a human being. ....

What do they consider as plenty of borrowings?

Thanks
A95

[gooram]

Those of you that use the "umbrella" loans, regardless of the provider...

What do you think the main advantage of these types of loan are?

I understand each sub-loan can contribute to the one overall LOC limit. Does this mean that if say you had two sub-LOCs this could both be drawn such that the accumulated borrowings added up to the total LOC limit? Or do you have a single account that is approved for all borrowings?

What are the costs associated with raising the LOC limit, i.e. getting valuations on all your properties etc.

Thanks

[MJK]

You can have up to ten sub accuounts, or something like that, with STGPL. The limit for each sub account can be chosen but all must add up to the total limit approved. The loan is not all that flexible because if you want to add or subtract sub accounts you have to fill out forms and pay fees, but its all relative I suppose. Changing limits also attracts fees as does getting valuations done. STG is happy to do new vals for you at any time.
I used to have a sub account for every property etc but have now opted for only two - one for shares/funds and one for property. I use a speadsheet I pinched from a somersoft thread to track the total borrowings for each property as a percentage of the entire property sub account. Less sub accounts ment,for me, less monthly fees but more importantly less likelyhood of needing a limit reshuffle.
I'm not saying that STGPL is the best product around, just merely illustrating that it is workable and the people at STG seem to respond well enough for me to be able to get things done.

MJK :)

[gooram]

If you're on some kind of wealth package, are fees for new accounts, changing limits, valuations etc waived?

[Qlds007]

No unfortunately not. SGB charged for most things.

[Rolf Latham]

Awwwwww come on richard thats not true

They only charge you if you want to

increase loan amounts
change limits
move security
pay a home loan payment over the counter
sneeze
etc etc

yeah Id agree, that STG would have to be the most inflex of the balance sheet lenders in terms of fees, especially once you are on board.

ta

rolf

[lukentel]

Monopoly

Maybe you'd get a second opinion from Rolf/Richard or one of the other brokers, while I can see that there is a variance of opinion on who gives the best product end of the day (depending on your structuring etc) fees and structure etc impact on your net return.

While things look great on the outset you have to look at the long term side of things too - its not all about initial rate and application fees.

[BV]

my broker put my on the stg portfolio loan and i've been pretty happy with it. the monthly interest payment isn't a problem - just have to remember once a month to transfer the amount out of loc and immediately transfer it back in - that sufices in their books as a payment.
Hi Lizzie,
You can talk to the bank and they will deduct the interest monthly a few days before it's due.
For example, I have the interest from 2 I/P's paid from an IP subaccount deducted monthly, and I have the interest for the PPOR decucted from the main account where all our wages go into. I even have my credit card paid automatically every month and I have also scheduled monthly interest payments to another lender.
I find the portfolio a very flexible type of loan for what I want to do.
Cheers

[Mr Ed]

St G are great as a set & forget lender, but as Rolf L says, sneeze, cough or ask questions and be ready for fee's. But hey you knew that because it was in your loan docs when you read and signed them, you did read them didn't you ? :eek: