While interest rates aren’t really that high, the number of homeowners experiencing mortgage stress is. When property prices soared we had no choice but to borrow to the hilt. To be fair, money was cheap and nobody expected rates to increase so fast and by so much. But they did, so now what?
Since the Reserve Bank started hiking up the cash rate back in May 2022 a homeowner with a $500,000 variable mortgage would have had to find an extra $1200 per month. The easiest way to claw back some of these hikes is to refinance your home loan. You see, there is such a thing as a loyalty tax and existing customers typically pay around 0.5% more just for sticking with their bank.
Refinancing from the average existing borrower rate of 6.73% to the lowest
