Refinancing

Your rate quietly stopped being competitive

Lenders reserve their sharpest pricing for new customers. Sometimes the answer is to move; often it is to make your existing lender match the market. We model both, including every exit and setup cost.

0.90% Median rate reduction across our refinances last year
$412 Median monthly saving on a $650k balance
41% Of files where repricing beat switching lender
$0 Cost to have us run the comparison
Who is this for?

Four reasons people refinance

Only one of them is the rate — and it is not always the one that saves the most money.

01

The loyalty tax has caught up with you

Existing customers routinely sit half a per cent to a full per cent above what the same lender offers new borrowers. On a $650,000 balance that is roughly $400 a month you are paying for nothing at all.

02

You want to release equity

For a renovation, a deposit on an investment property, or to clear higher-rate debt. Equity release is straightforward when structured well and expensive when it quietly extends a 30-year term over a car loan.

03

A fixed period is about to end

Rolling onto the revert rate is the single most expensive default in Australian lending. Lenders count on inertia. Sixty days out is when this conversation should happen.

04

Your circumstances have changed

A pay rise, a business sale, a separation or a new child all change what structure suits you. The loan you took out five years ago was built for a different life.

Your lending options

Reprice first, switch second

A refinance is not automatically the answer. Here is the order we work through, and what each step actually involves.

Step one

Ask your lender to reprice

A formal repricing request, backed by a competitor quote, costs nothing and needs no application. It succeeds more often than people expect.

Step two

Price the full switch

Discharge fee, new lender setup, and any break cost if you are fixed. Only then can the saving be called a saving.

Step three

Weigh the cash-back offers

A $4,000 cash-back attached to a rate 0.3% worse costs you money by year three. We model the five-year position, not the honeymoon.

Structure

Keep the term, not the habit

Refinancing usually resets the loan to 30 years. Holding the original end date is what preserves the interest saving.

Structure

Consolidate carefully

Rolling a personal loan into the mortgage lowers the repayment and can raise the total interest enormously. Sometimes right, often not.

Structure

Split the loan on the way out

A refinance is the cheapest moment to restructure. Fixing part and keeping the rest offset is easiest done now.

Rates and costs

What switching actually costs

Indicative on a $650,000 variable balance moving to a new lender. Fixed loans add a break cost that must be quoted by the lender.

Cost Typical Range Notes
Discharge fee $350 $150 – $600 Charged by your current lender
New lender setup $0 $0 – $995 Frequently waived on refinance
Land title fees $340 $180 – $420 State government, varies by jurisdiction
Break cost, if fixed Quoted $0 – $20,000+ Only your lender can quote it — always ask first
Broker fee $0 $0 Lender-paid commission on residential refinance

Indicative only, as at March 2026. Break costs on fixed loans are calculated on the lender funding loss and can be very large — we obtain a written quote before recommending any move.

Why Lending Institute?

When refinancing is the wrong answer

We talk roughly two in five clients out of switching. A broker paid on settlement telling you not to settle is worth listening to.

01

Real lender comparison, in writing

Your file is run against the pricing and credit policy of every lender on our panel — not the three a bank branch can offer. You receive a written shortlist with the rate, the fees and the reason each lender made the list.

02

A lending strategy built around your position

Offset versus redraw, fixed versus variable, split structures, ownership through a trust — the structure is chosen for the next five years, not just the first repayment.

03

Guidance from people who read credit policy

Every broker here holds a Diploma of Finance and Mortgage Broking Management and has placed files with the lenders they recommend. We know which policies bend and which do not.

04

We stay on the file until it settles

Valuations, credit queries, conveyancer timelines and settlement bookings are ours to chase. You hear from us before you have to ask.

What usually gets in the way
  • Break costs on a fixed loan can wipe out several years of saving
  • Refinancing above 80% LVR triggers LMI again, even if you paid it once already
  • A recent job change can make you unbankable at exactly the wrong moment
  • Resetting to a fresh 30-year term hides a higher lifetime interest bill
How we place it
  • Written break quote obtained from your lender before anything is recommended
  • Current valuation ordered first so we know your true LVR, not the purchase price
  • Repricing pursued with the incumbent before any application is lodged
  • Original loan end date preserved so the saving is real, not deferred
How it works

Understand → Compare → Apply → Settle

01 Day 0

Understand your goals

Twenty minutes, no forms. What you are buying, what you earn, what you owe and what you have saved.

Credit impact — none
02 Days 1–5

Explore your options

The file is built properly, then run against all forty lenders. You receive a written shortlist with rates and fees.

Credit impact — soft enquiry only
03 Days 5–7

Apply

A pre-qualified application to a lender whose policy you already meet. We order the valuation and manage the assessment.

Credit impact — enquiry recorded
04 Weeks 3–6

Settle

Unconditional approval, loan documents, settlement booked with your conveyancer. The rate review is diarised.

Credit impact — account reported
Run the numbers

See the switch cost against the saving

Repayment comparison, LVR against the 80% LMI threshold, and total interest over the remaining term — all live.

Open the calculators
Common questions

Refinancing questions

Ask a broker →

There is no legal limit, but each refinance records a credit enquiry and several in a short period reads poorly to an assessor. Practically, once every two to three years is comfortable. If you are moving more often than that, repricing with your existing lender is usually the better tool.

A single enquiry has a modest, temporary effect and is normal. What damages a file is several enquiries clustered together, which is why we only lodge with a lender whose policy you already meet — and why the comparison stage uses a soft enquiry only.

Only if the ongoing rate is also competitive. A $4,000 cash-back on a rate 0.3% worse than the market costs you about $1,950 a year on a $650,000 loan, so you are behind before year three. Cash-backs are marketing; the rate is the product.

Possibly, but a lower valuation raises your LVR and may push you above 80%, which reintroduces LMI. We order a valuation upfront rather than discovering this mid-application. If the numbers do not work, repricing with your current lender usually still does.

Access and leverage. We can see the pricing every lender is currently writing, which is not what is advertised, and a repricing request from a broker with volume carries more weight than the same request from an individual customer. It costs you nothing either way.

Get started

Find out whether moving is worth it

Send us your current rate and balance. We will tell you what the market is offering and whether the switch cost justifies it — including when it does not.

Both options pricedReprice and switch, modelled side by side.
No credit enquiryComparison runs on a soft enquiry only.
Honest answerWe tell two in five clients to stay put.