This month I have a couple of tips and suggestions that will hopefully help make banking simple and easy for people looking at buying property to live in or invest in.

There have been a few recent tools that have been added by the Commonwealth Bank that help people with the research they need to do before buying property.

Firstly, for those who have an i-device, iPad, iPhone etc, the Commonwealth Property Guide uses “augmented reality” to give you information about the property at your fingertips.

In basic terms, you point the camera on your phone at a property and the phone brings up details about the property and links to realestate.com.au and rpdata to show the current sale price and past sales for a property.

Another tool that the Commonwealth Bank brought out recently is for property investors. It’s a game called investorville.com.au.

Within this you can buy and sell property and watch your investment grow over time all over Australia. The game also calculates expenses that go along with investing. It helps give a better understanding of the risks and rewards of property investment.

The last tip I will give is to jump onto the Commbank.com.au website and play with the calculators and tools on there. The “How Much Can I Borrow” calculator is helpful to find out what is affordable for you and the “Commonwealth Bank Property Value Guide” is a good resource for those without the i-device.

School Banking Competition

As we start our centenary celebrations all Australian primary schools have been invited to take part in our Future Bank competition.  

While we reflect on our past we are asking Aussie kids around the country to share with us their vision of money and banking in the future for the chance to win their school a $10,000 technology package.

The competition opens Monday 22 August 2011 and will close Friday 14 October 2011. To be eligible to win entering schools simply need to make sure they are participating in our School Banking program by the competition close date and have made their first School Banking deposit by Friday 11 November 2011.

Contact the branch for further information.