It might be too late to fix your mortgage – so try this saving instead |
It might be too late to fix your mortgage – so try this saving instead
April 11, 2026 — 5:10am
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The thing about locking in your loan interest with a fixed rate is that by the time most people think about doing it, it’s already too late.
But that’s not to say it always works out financially worse – indeed, I came out way ahead with a half-fix on my first home loan (I’ll come back to this strategy). So, let’s model what would need to happen with official interest rates to make the current fixed rates work.
The way you win with a fixed rate is – of course – to end up making less in total repayments over the period of the fix than you would have if you had stayed on the variable rate. Let’s look at a pretty typical loan now: $700,000.
The best-of-breed standard variable rate since the two rate rises in February and March is about 5.8 per cent. Note that you will be able to get cheaper than this, but I consider best of breed to be loans with real offset accounts because – used correctly – these are enormously powerful debt-reduction tools.
(A real offset account is one that is separate and quarantined from the loan itself, so........