Floating the idea of refinancing your home loan?

Your income, expenses and plans can change over time. Reviewing your home loan can help you understand whether it continues to suit your circumstances.

I’ll help you assess your current loan, explore suitable options and weigh up the benefits and costs of making a change.

1. Be clear about what you want to achieve

We’ll start by discussing why you’re considering a review.

You might be approaching the end of a fixed-rate period, looking for different loan features, planning renovations or wondering whether your current loan remains competitive.

Depending on what we find, your options could include negotiating with your existing lender, changing products or moving to another lender. I’ll explain the options and the reasons behind my recommendations.

2. Compare the full cost of making a change

When comparing loans, we’ll look at the interest rate, fees, features and costs of switching.

Depending on your circumstances, those costs may include:

• Discharge fees on your existing loan
• Break costs if you’re leaving a fixed-rate loan early
• Application, valuation or registration fees
• Lenders mortgage insurance, where required

We’ll consider whether the expected benefits outweigh those costs and, where savings are expected, how long it could take to recover the cost of switching. MoneySmart explains the costs to check before refinancing.

3. Pay attention to the loan term

The remaining term of your current loan is an important part of the comparison.

A lower repayment may partly reflect spreading the balance over more years. Extending the term could increase the total interest you pay, even with a lower interest rate.

I’ll help you compare the repayments and overall costs across suitable loan terms, so you can understand the effect on both your current budget and your longer-term plans. More about how loan terms affect costs.

4. Choose features that are useful to you

We’ll discuss how you use your loan and what you may need in the future.

That could include an offset account, redraw, the ability to make extra repayments or a different mix of fixed and variable borrowing.

Features can have costs and restrictions. I’ll explain how the relevant options work and help you consider whether their benefits justify any additional cost.

5. Consider additional borrowing carefully

If refinancing includes borrowing extra for renovations or other plans, we’ll assess what that means for your repayments and overall financial position.

If you’re considering consolidating other debts into your home loan, we’ll also look at the repayment period and the risks of securing those debts against your property. Lower repayments can come with higher total costs when debt is repaid over a longer period. MoneySmart outlines the considerations for debt consolidation.

6. Have support through the change and beyond

If you decide to proceed, I’ll help prepare your application, liaise with the lender and keep you informed.

The lender will assess your current circumstances and the property against its requirements. When the new loan is ready to settle, I’ll help coordinate the finance arrangements and follow up outstanding requirements.

After settlement, I’ll remain available to answer questions and help review your loan as your needs change.

Whether you’re local or interstate, we can work together over Zoom.

Let’s review where you stand

A review starts with understanding your current loan and what you need from it.

Book a 15-minute phone call, and we’ll discuss whether a closer look at your home loan would be useful.