Speaking about the launch, 1300HomeLoan founder and managing director John Kolenda said the company has spent  significant time late last year selecting its dedicated 200 mortgage brokers who will work under the banner of 1300 homeloans

With the business website and Call Centre infrastructure in place the new business is certainly ready to make a start generating warm leads to their mortgage brokers and thereby significantly boost their business.

Mr Kolenda said he was still signing up new partners for the network almost every day and was progressing rapidly towards his eventual target of 400 members who would share an annual marketing war chest of $4 million.

The business is looking for experienced and highly professional mortgage brokers to join their ranks – home loan leads will be provided.

Mr Kolenda said the 1300HomeLoan brand was exclusive to selected brokers on a postcode basis and was supported by the 1300HomeLoan marketing, individual broker promotion, a website and a host of other support material.

Property prices have come down significantly making them more affordable to potential purchasers. Interest rates are on their way down with further decreases projected during 2012.

Consequently there is an expectation of more people looking to make a purchase and apply for home loans. Also property owners are likely to be fairly active seeking out good mortgage refinance deals.

Although we’re yet to see the strong numbers of home buyers from five years ago, lenders are likely to see business improving this year as borrowers react to lower prices and interest rates.

Home buyers started to pick up towards the end of 2011, with almost 51,000 home loans financed in November, according to the latest (original) figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released last week (January 16, 2012).

This is the most significant number of home loans financed as recorded by the ABS for two years. The actual dollar value of these home loans was almost $15 billion in November alone.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics the year to November 2011 has seen an increase in  home loan refinance applications nationally of 17%.

Major industry players expect this trend to continue into 2012.

It is not only that variable rates have began to come down with more decreases expected, fixed rates are at historically low levels with numerous lenders now offering fixed home loans at rates under 6%.

The key driver for home loan refinance is the expectation of getting a cheaper home loan, access to more funding and an overall better home loan deal.

The currently experienced increase in refinancing may be indicative of a trend of homeowners choosing to stay put rather than upgrade. A recent RP Data report has suggested a massive increase in the time homes are staying on market for many capital city council areas, and Mortgage Choice spokesperson Belinda Williamson said homeowners will have to weigh carefully whether upgrading is feasible in a stagnant housing market.

Industry players believe that international banks have the capacity to provide significant competition to local lenders especially if they decide to full pass on rate cuts to their home loans. Australian banks have already made it clear last year that future rate cuts may not be passed on to borrowers in full in order to absorb increases to funding costs.

According to Mr Bouris from Yellow Brick Road, at least three big banks, the $62 billion Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, $42 billion Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and $35 billion Mizuho Financial Group, are said to be considering operating on Australian shores.

But while Mr Bouris is bullish about what the Japanese banks can achieve in the Australian mortgage market, RESI’s Lisa Montgomery is not convinced.

Ms Montgomery believes that Japanese banks just as local banks are affected by the increase to the cost of home loan funds and will not be able to significantly undercut the interest rates offered on home loans by Australian lenders.

According to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics the number of home loan applications from first home buyers increased by 18 per cent in November compared to October – adding more than $2.86 billion in home loans activity – the largest volume since December 2009.

These statistics spell positive news to those working in home loans or property.

“November delivered the largest number of borrowers entering the property market in almost two years and it was the fourth consecutive month with rising numbers of dwellings financed by first home buyers. It’s significant because it pre-dates the second interest rate cut in December,” he said.

However a significant contributor to the First Home Buyer figures was the state of NSW. In NSW alone, close to 4000 first home buyers took out home loans in November – a significant jump of 34 per cent up from the previous month. By comparison, the number of first home buyers in Victoria and Queensland rose by just 5 per cent and 8 per cent respectively, in the same period.

Many home purchases in NSW were effectively ‘brought forward’ to meet the stamp duty concession deadline before rulings changed on January 1, 2012.

And, while the CBA and other banks/lenders continue to complain of having to pay depositors higher rates for the funds they lend out, RBA statistics point to the fact that the gap between deposit rates and the RBA cash rate is decreasing.

Certainly figures provided by the RBA suggest that the cost of home loans is nowhere near as high as is alleged by the banks.

Of particular note, figures from the recent Commonwealth Bank profit announcement show net home loan incomes jumped more than 130 per cent since the height of the global financial crisis, to more than $2.6 billion, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Despite this most of Australia’s larger banks have in fact made comments to the media that they are unlikely to pass on in full future rate cuts announced by RBA due to higher costs of wholesale funds.

The World Bank yesterday slashed its global growth forecasts, warning the world is on the edge of a new financial crisis, more damaging than the one that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

A number of analysts have suggested the impact of rising costs of wholesale funding have been exaggerated by the banks, particularly as the sector can access other sources for cheaper funding.

PRD national has conducted a poll of existing property owners which has identified that 68% of existing home owners are taking advantage of November and December cash rate reductions by putting any extra savings toward their home loans.

Another 18% of respondents planned to save the difference, while 8% will spend on discretionary items.

Almost 6% of the respondents intend to spend the money saved through home loan rate reduction on day to day expenses suggesting that a number of home and property owners are struggling to meet their home loan repayments as well as afford to buy basic essentials.

Most experts believe that interest rates will come down again in February.

Following an RBA cash rate reduction first in November and then again in early December,most mortgage brokers and lenders have seen an increase in demand for home loans.

“The consecutive growth seen in the second half of 2011 should continue while consumers act upon repeated rate cuts by the RBA in November and December,“ Rushton said.

Home loan approval figures for November released by the ABS showed the eighth consecutive month of growth for housing finance, which Ruston said was indicative of the continued trend.

There is good reason to expect that borrowers will remain positive and demand for home loans strong, given that the market is anticipating future rate cuts.

Loan Market said it had seen significant demand brought forward in NSW due to the 2011 stamp duty exemption deadline for first homebuyers, which passed on 1 January this year.

That increase was coming off a lower base of 46,293 in October.

Economists’ forecasts had centred on home loan approvals to show an increase of up 1.4 per cent for the month.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said that total housing finance by value rose 2.1 per cent in November, seasonally adjusted, to $20.344 billion.

Last month the bank management announced that they will be conducting monthly reviews of their home loans rates and may decide to initiate out of cycle rate changes rather than in response to the Reserve Bank monthly announcement.

“Bank funding costs are now largely unrelated to movements in the Reserve Bank’s official cash rate,” ANZ CEO Philip Chronican said.

“By reviewing key variable lending rates each month we can more accurately reflect the sustained changes in funding costs we incur through the interest we pay to customers for their deposits and to investors in wholesale money markets.”