Refund home loans are home loans where your mortgage broker refunds you some of the commission they receive for arranging your mortgage. Or are they?

Thats the question facing a local mortgage broker for openly promoting that they pay bigger refunds to their borrowers.

Mates Rates Mortgage Brokers now finds itself being muscled by a Queensland based corporate giant as a result.

Mortgage Interest rates are on hold for a moment with the Reserve Bank deciding last week that borrowers are already feeling enough ‘pain’.

This is largely due to the rate hikes the lenders have given us to bolster and boost their own burgeoning profits.

However that hasn’t calmed the nerves of all borrowers, with many still nervous that interest rates are set to rise, and they will.

Fair Trading Minister Virginia Judge today congratulated Central Coast traders for receiving one of the highest score cards for home building compliance this year.

Fair Trading investigators targeted 82 sites and 207 individuals in November and found 97 per cent were licensed and complying with the law.

“It’s great to see the majority of home building traders in the Central Coast region doing the right thing by consumers and their industry,” Ms Judge said.

Central Coast property owners will continue to see their investment grow in the new year, with house prices already exceeding pre-global financial crisis levels, new figures show.

Property values have jumped three per cent nationally and price growth is expected to continue well into 2010, according to Australian Property Monitors.

Economist Matthew Bell says Sydney and Melbourne have led the recovery, with Melbourne recording a 12.5 per cent rise in house prices since March.