Guest article from Finder money editor Richard Whitten
The 2024 Finder Home Loan Awards looked at more than 3,000 home loans to judge the top home loans in the market. This year, BCU Bank’s home loans won in two award categories, and was highly commended in two further categories.
BCU Bank won these awards:
- Owner Occupier Home Loan - 1 Year Fixed award
- Investor Home Loan - IO - 1 Year Fixed award
Highly commended is how Finder awards the loans that finish second and third in any category. These places reflect products that are extremely competitive in their award categories.
BCU was highly commended for these awards:
- Investor Home Loan - IO - 2 Year Fixed category
- Owner Occupier Home Loan - Refinance Fixed category
This year’s awards involved looking at more than 3,000 home loans in 14 award categories, including homebuyers and investors, plus specific types of borrowers like refinancers and first home buyers.
While each award category has its own judging criteria, we know from surveying thousands of Australians that most borrowers are looking for:
- A loan with a low interest rate
- A loan with low fees
For some award categories we also considered whether a loan has a 100% offset account. This is the most popular home loan feature and it's not found on every single home loan.
We scored home loans via a data-driven methodology that ranks loans higher if they have lower interest rates and low fees. We also considered a range of the most common loan fees, like application, legal, valuation and establishment fees.
And we didn't just grab data from a single moment in time. Home loan rates change all the time, especially in a time of rising interest rates. We scored all the home loans in the Finder Awards across a 12-month period.
This ensures that a home loan isn't just a great deal for a short moment in time. We recognise and reward home loans and lenders that offer consistent long-term value to borrowers.
Finder's verdict
BCU's fixed rate home loans had a very strong showing at this year's Finder Awards. The four BCU home loans that either won or were highly commended all had some of the absolute lowest rates on the market across a 12-month period. And they also consistently had some of the lowest fees around.
Author bio: Richard Whitten is a money editor at Finder, and has been covering home loans, property and personal finance for the last seven years. He has written for Yahoo Finance, Money Magazine and Homely, and has appeared on television and radio programs nationwide to talk about loans and money-saving tips. Richard enjoys helping people understand the ins and outs of mortgages so they can make smarter property decisions.