Variable rates tipped between 4 & 5 per cent

Mortgage Choice managing director Paul Lahiff believes official interest rates will bottom out between two per cent and 2.5 per cent, putting variable rates into “the high fours, low fives”.
In an exclusive web video interview with API, Lahiff says that as a property investor himself, he won’t be thinking about fixing his interest rates until later this year.
“The last quarter of calendar (year) ’09, I’d be starting to think about it,” he says. “As I’m a property investor myself, I wouldn’t be doing anything much before September or October.”
Lahiff says he feels the Australian property market is in much better shape than some markets overseas.
“We don’t have enough houses being built, the rental vacancy rates are certainly a lot lower here than overseas and I think largely that Australian lenders didn’t really overcommit people, so in comparison to the US we had none of the damage that was created over there by lending to people who really couldn’t afford to repay the amount of mortgage (they took out),” he says