I was researching and I came across this new home loan offering from Bank Australia. It is part of a government program to offer low-cost finance to encourage people to improve the energy performance of their homes. In this case, if you are doing a new-build or changing an existing property and it meets certain criteria, you can access lower interest rates. From what I can tell these are the lowest rates currently available anywhere publicly.
I'm focusing on the renovation of existing property:
Eligibility requirements:
- The property must be all-electric, no gas.
- In the past 18 months you have done 3 activities from a list of retrofits including: solar, battery, induction cooktop, ceiling fans, EV charger, electric hot water, insulation, reverse cycle AC, double-glazed windows. Check out the link for all the details. Alternatively you can get a scorecard assessment and demonstrate you have improved the performance of your property.
If you can tick those boxes you are on track for one of the lowest rates going.
Note that most of these measures are worth doing on their own! Solar definitely going to save you money, ceiling fans &/or reverse cycle AC great for cooling and heating, insulation a massive win. So you really win twice: you get the benefit of the upgrade, plus also the benefit of the lower interest rate.
I'm sadly ineligible as I did many of the upgrades more than 18 months ago.
@AAC: Ahhh a VRF system, I see….
Do you know what the indoor head units look like? Also worth knowing they don’t have wifi/app and don’t swing left to right just up and down
Also think it’s worth clarifying that the Midea system isn’t eligible for this home loan as it doesn’t have good enough energy efficiency