Refinance your home loan in Australia, properly.

When the rate differential between the current and new loan is large enough that the interest saved over the next two to three years materially exceeds switching costs (discharge, valuation, application fees, and any LMI exposure if LVR has changed) and any fixed-rate break costs. A rate differential of around 0.30% or more with adequate equity is often the threshold where the numbers begin to justify a move. Subject to lender criteria.

Direct switching costs typically sit between $500 and $2,000 before any cashback offset. Components include: discharge fee at the outgoing lender (typically $350 to $500 per loan; a borrower with two splits pays it twice); application or establishment fee at the new lender (often waived on refinance); property valuation fee ($200 to $400, often absorbed by the new lender); legal and registration fees ($150 to $400 total). Lenders Mortgage Insurance is rarely transferable; refinancing into a higher-LVR position can mean a fresh LMI premium.

Typically three to six weeks from application to settlement, depending on the new lender's processing times and the discharge speed of the existing lender. The borrower's title needs to transfer between lenders, which involves the existing lender's discharge team, the new lender's settlement team, and (in most cases) a settlement agent or solicitor. Maxfin coordinates both ends to keep the timeline tight.

A refinance application creates a credit enquiry on the file, which has a small short-term effect. The benefit usually outweighs the impact. The more meaningful question is enquiry density: multiple credit applications across a short window can read as credit-shopping. Maxfin sequences submissions to one carefully chosen lender rather than scattering across the panel, which protects the file's enquiry profile for future applications.

A one-off. Refinance cashback offers in 2026 commonly sit at $2,000 to $4,000, sometimes capped to higher loan amounts and shorter settlement windows. The right framing is to compare cashback received in year one against additional interest paid over years one through five if the rate is even 0.20% higher than an alternative lender. The cashback should be the tiebreaker between two competitive offers, not the reason for choosing a higher-rate lender.

Compensation paid to the lender for breaking a fixed-rate contract before its term ends. The break cost reflects the rate differential between the contracted fixed rate and the lender's current market rate for the equivalent term. Break costs can be modest (or even zero) when market rates have risen since the fix was set. They can be substantial when market rates have fallen, because the lender is forgoing higher contracted interest income. A current written quote from the existing lender is required before any decision.

Depends on the rate environment, the borrower's preference for certainty, and the loan's intended hold period. Fixed rates lock in certainty and remove flexibility (limited extra repayments and break costs if the loan settles, sells or refinances during the fixed period). Variable rates allow offset, redraw and unrestricted refinancing but carry interest-rate risk. Splits between fixed and variable are common where the borrower wants partial certainty and partial flexibility. The right answer is borrower-specific. Subject to lender criteria.

Yes, but the new lender will assess the file on current circumstances, not the position when the original loan was approved. Borrowers whose income has reduced, who have taken on additional debts, or whose dependents have increased may find their borrowing capacity has compressed materially since the last application. Maxfin runs the file through several lender calculators before recommending where to submit, so the borrower knows whether the refinance is currently feasible at competitive pricing.