Teachers Mutual Bank home loans

I recently purchased a property with a Your Way Plus Home Loan from Teachers Mutual Bank. I chose them for their low interest rates as well as their offset account options. I found them to be really fast in turning around finance approvals. Before I started seriously looking at properties, I applied for pre-approval with Teachers Mutual. That took about a week for them to process and approve. Later, when my offer on a property was accepted, Teachers Mutual made finance approval unconditional in about a week, exceptionally fast in the hot property market. Bankers Jo-Anna Howell and Hollie Welsh were also very helpful and responsive throughout the entire process - thanks both. I'm writing this review because Teachers Mutual doesn't show up on a lot of comparison websites. If I hadn't heard about them through a friend, I wouldn't have known to look them up, which is a shame because I did a lot of research on home loans (from about 15 or so different financial institutions) and Teachers Mutual has one of the best products on the market. I highly recommend considering the Teachers Mutual products.

This bank was great until they decided to increase our 1.95% fixed interest rate to 2.14% on the settlement day of the purchase of our first home. They didn't even, call but gave us the information via email on settlement day. They said they contacted our broker prior to settlement, however this is false. It's safe to say this definitely put a dampener on what should have been a positive experience. My partner and I are first year teachers and this banks mantra of "supporting teachers" in my experience is rubbish and the complete contrary. Furthermore, they were rude, arrogant and not understanding at all on the phone. Not even willing to negotiate or help in anyway. Once our 4 year term is up we are 100% going elsewhere. Very negative experience.

I have found Teachers Mutual Bank to have fantastic customer service. When looking at housing loans there are a lot of variables but they gave me clear, concise information so I clearly understood the terms & conditions. I've also found their rates to be very competitive which made it an easy decision for me. TMBank has such a reliable on-line service but I’ve also used their mobile service which means a bank representative comes to your house with all the paperwork ready to complete. Easy! No brokers only a bank employee which I found fabulous. I changed my loan to TMBank because of the service, ease of changing & their cheaper rate but to cap it all off, at the time there was a $1500. cash back so changing banks cost me nothing. In fact I came out with a profit! I chose the Classic Home Loan due to its flexibility of no penalties for paying extra or early finishing of the loan. I highly recommend TMBank.

They are easy to deal with. Upfront about lending options and they are competitive.

Although they're a mutual bank, they're acting like a 'big' player in the industry and treating customers like the Big 4 do. There is nothing personal or personable about this bank. As a credit union they were OK, as a bank they are not.