Independent Australian borrowing journal
General information, not credit advice
Yard finance, balloons and leases
Photo: Maksym Kozlenko, Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. See all image credits.
Car yards sell speed. The contract sells time. This hub slows the paperwork down: who owns the car, what a balloon is doing at the end of the term, how used-vehicle age caps work, and why a novated lease is a salary-packaging product rather than a cheaper loan in disguise.
Read how car loans work in Australia, then car loan versus novated lease and balloon payments.
A balloon shrinks the monthly repayment by leaving a lump of principal at the end. It is not a discount. It is a delayed bill, often due when the car is worth less than you hope.
25 June 2026
Financing a used car is less about the year on the rego and more about lender age caps, valuation, PPSR checks, and refusing to borrow for a mechanical surprise.
28 May 2026
A novated lease is a salary-packaging structure, not a cheaper car loan in a different hat. FBT, running costs, residuals and job mobility decide whether it beats an ordinary loan — not the weekly figure on a brochure.
22 April 2026
A car loan is usually a secured consumer credit contract with the vehicle as collateral, a term of three to seven years, and a dealer origination path that is optional and often expensive. Here is the structure without the yard script.
5 February 2026
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