ACL 390611 | MFAA Member | Established 2005
Refinance Your Home Loan.See What Switching Is Worth.
Refinancing is worth doing when the saving clears the cost of leaving, and not before. If your rate has not been reviewed in a couple of years, or a fixed period is ending, we will work out both numbers and tell you which way they point. Sometimes the answer is stay where you are, and we will say so.
15 minutes on the phone. Bring your current rate and your balance, nothing else. No credit check, no paperwork, no obligation. If staying put is the better answer we will tell you that, and it costs you nothing either way. Lenders pay us a commission on settlement and we disclose it in writing before any work begins.
Intellect Finance – Refinance Brokers
Independent since 2005 | ACL 390611What Does It Mean to Refinance a Home Loan?
To refinance a home loan means replacing your existing mortgage with a new one, either with a different lender or with your current lender on different terms. People refinance a home loan to lower the rate, change the structure, consolidate other debts, or release equity from the property.
A refinance is a new loan application, not an adjustment to the one you have. The new lender orders its own valuation, re-assesses your income and expenses against its current credit policy, and takes a fresh look at every debt on your file. Nothing about your repayment history with the old lender carries across as an entitlement, although it can help.
Refinancing is worth it when the saving over your remaining term is larger than the total cost of leaving, which includes discharge and registration fees, a valuation, any establishment fee and any break cost on a fixed portion. That is a separate calculation, and nobody does it for you. ASIC’s own guidance on switching home loans is to ask your current lender for a better rate first, because it costs nothing to try.
Common Situations
Why People Refinance a Home Loan and What Usually Triggers It
Six situations account for almost every home loan refinance we run. Most people arrive with one and find a second one waiting underneath it.
A fixed period is ending
Fixed loans roll onto a revert rate automatically unless you act. That revert rate is set by the lender, not by the market, and it is rarely the sharpest thing available. This is the single most common trigger, and the one with the clearest deadline.
Nobody has looked at it in years
A loan left alone drifts. Your equity has changed, your income has probably changed, and the lender you chose may no longer be competitive for the position you are now in. Two years without a review is enough to be worth checking.
An interest-only period is expiring
When interest-only ends, repayments step up, because the principal now has to be repaid over a shorter remaining term. That jump is often the reason someone calls, and it is a structural question rather than a rate one.
Other debts are getting expensive
Card balances, a car loan or personal debt folded into the mortgage. It lowers the monthly figure, and it can cost more over time because a short debt becomes a long one. We model that both ways before recommending it.
The structure no longer fits
An offset that was never used, a split that made sense on a different income, or two loans that should be one. Refinancing is often the least costly moment to fix a structure, because the work is being done anyway.
You want equity out
Renovation, an investment deposit or business capital. What you use the funds for changes the tax position permanently, so it gets its own page. See cash-out refinance.
Social Proof
120+ Five-Star Google Reviews
Refinancers, first home buyers, upgraders and investors. Pulled live from Google, not curated by us.
Joseph Sukkar
Principal Broker · ACL 390611
Who You’re Dealing With
Built on 25 Years in Australian Finance
Joseph Sukkar started in finance in 2000 and founded Intellect Finance in Penrith in 2005. Since then the team has arranged more than 6,500 loans for clients across Australia, from first homes to complex commercial and asset finance.
Residential lending sits with Moufid, our Head of Residential Lending, who works in it every day and has watched the assessment rules change three times. On a refinance the useful work happens before anything is lodged: totalling the cost of leaving, setting it against the saving over your remaining term rather than a fresh thirty years, and establishing which lenders would read your file favourably before an application leaves a mark on your credit file. Sometimes that work ends with us telling you to ring your own lender instead.
100+ Lenders Including
Accreditation with a lender is not an endorsement by it. Which lender suits you is decided by your file, not by who is on this list.
Still Paying a Rate You Have Not Looked At?
Fifteen minutes tells you whether moving is worth it. No credit check.What Actually Decides It
Your Existing Loan Would Not Be Assessed the Same Way Today
A home loan refinance is judged against today’s lending rules rather than the ones that approved the loan you already hold. Six things decide whether the move is available to you and whether it is worth making.
The buffer applies to the new loan rather than the old one
Since 2021 APRA has required lenders to assess you at your loan rate plus a buffer of at least 3 percentage points. If rates have moved since you borrowed, the same loan is being tested at a materially higher figure than the one that approved it. This is the most common reason a refinance stalls.
A narrow exception path exists and most people never hear about it
APRA wrote to lenders in June 2023 acknowledging that some refinancing borrowers may no longer meet standard criteria, and said such loans must be assessed case by case, with past repayment behaviour able to be considered as an additional indicator of capacity. APRA expects exceptions to stay prudent and limited. Not every lender uses them, and none advertises them.
The debt-to-income limit changed who can take you
Since 1 February 2026, banks and other deposit-taking institutions may write no more than 20 percent of their new mortgage lending at a debt-to-income ratio of six times or higher, measured separately for owner-occupier and investor loans. It is a quota on lenders, not a ban on borrowers, so which lender you approach and when has become part of the answer.
Your equity is a number you have not seen yet
The new lender lends against its own valuation, not what a website says your home is worth and not what your current lender has on file. That figure sets the loan to value ratio, which decides both the pricing band you land in and whether lenders mortgage insurance applies at all.
A new 30-year term is a cost even at a lower rate
Rolling a loan with twenty-two years left into a fresh thirty-year term lowers the monthly repayment and raises the total interest paid. ASIC’s own advice is to negotiate a loan of similar length to your current one. A saving quoted per month and a saving over the life of the loan are not the same number.
What you do with borrowed funds is fixed at the moment you draw them
The ATO’s position is that interest is deductible only to the extent the borrowing is used to produce assessable income, and that where a loan is used for both private and income-producing purposes the interest must be apportioned in that ratio for the life of the loan. A private redraw against an investment property does not undo itself later.
Checked August 2026. The serviceability buffer and the exceptions guidance are set by APRA, whose letter to lenders is dated 9 June 2023. The debt-to-income limit is described in APRA’s announcement and applies to authorised deposit-taking institutions; lending for the purchase or construction of new dwellings and bridging loans for owner-occupiers sit outside it. Best Interests Duty is sourced from ASIC Regulatory Guide 273. Switching costs and lenders mortgage insurance are described by ASIC Moneysmart. Interest deductibility is sourced from the ATO. Individual lenders apply their own policies on top of all of this. We are not tax agents. Confirm your position with a registered tax agent or the ATO before drawing funds. Everything else on this page is described in the important information at the foot of the page.
We don’t publish rates, because the rate you would actually be offered depends on your equity band, your loan purpose and the lender’s appetite on the day. What we can do is tell you where your file sits against each of the six things above. Ask us to check it.
The Honest Comparison
Do You Need to Refinance or Just Ask for a Discount?
One of these two answers does not involve us, which is presumably why most refinance pages do not put the question to you. Here it is anyway.
Asking your current lender
- Costs nothing to ask. ASIC’s own advice is to tell your lender you are planning to switch
- No new valuation, no new credit assessment, no discharge or establishment costs
- Keeps your remaining term, so the saving is not funded by stretching the loan
- They only have to beat themselves, and only by enough to keep you
- Cannot release equity, consolidate outside debts or fix a structure that no longer fits. Switching products internally usually carries its own fee
Moving to a new lender
- 100+ lenders assessed, including non-banks that sit outside the debt-to-income limit
- Releases equity, consolidates debt and restructures in one move
- Finds the lenders whose policy suits your file, including the ones assessing refinances case by case
- Exit and entry costs totalled against the saving before anything is lodged
- Legally required to act in your best interests, and no fee to you at any stage
Ring them first. It costs you nothing and it might end the conversation. Ask your current lender to review your rate before you do anything else, and say plainly that you are looking at moving. If they come back close to what the market would give you, take it and stop there. That outcome costs you the least and there is nothing in it for us. Refinancing earns its costs when the gap is structural rather than marginal, when you need equity released or debts consolidated, when a fixed or interest-only period is ending, or when your own lender has already said no to something. And if you are only moving for a cashback offer, do the arithmetic over the full term before you sign anything, because that is where those offers are usually recovered.
Ask Us What Your Lender Should Have Offered
We will tell you what the market would give you so you know whether their answer is close enough to stay put. Fifteen minutes. No credit check.The Difference
Why a Home Loan Broker Reads Lender Policy Rather Than a Rate Table
The advertised number is the easy part. What decides a refinance is the assessment rules, the valuation, the cost of leaving and the term you end up with, and none of those appear on a comparison site.
Legally On Your Side
Refinancing a home loan is regulated consumer credit, so we are required by law to act in your best interests and to put your interests ahead of ours where they conflict. Those obligations have applied to mortgage brokers since 1 January 2021. A lender’s own staff carry no equivalent duty when recommending their employer’s products.
100+ Lenders Rather Than One Credit Policy
Banks, second-tier lenders and non-banks, each assessing the same file differently. That matters more on a refinance than on a purchase, because a decline usually means one lender’s policy does not fit your position, not that your position is unfundable.
No Fee. Not Even Clawback.
We do not charge you for the comparison, the structuring or the application, on any loan type. If you discharge the loan early we wear the clawback ourselves rather than invoicing you for it, which plenty of brokers do. Lenders pay a commission on settlement, disclosed to you in writing before any work begins.
Your Credit File Stays Clean
Every application leaves a mark, and a string of refinance declines is visible to the next lender who looks. We establish where your file actually fits before anything is lodged, rather than testing lenders one at a time and finding out the expensive way.
The Process
How a Home Loan Refinance Actually Runs
Four steps, and the order matters. Nothing is lodged until the cost of leaving is known, because that is what decides whether to move at all.
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15 minutes
Your current position
Your rate, your balance, your remaining term, whether anything is fixed and when it ends. No documents and no credit check. You will finish the call knowing whether this is worth pursuing and whether to ring your own lender first.
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We model
The cost of leaving against the saving
Discharge fee, mortgage deregistration and registration, any application or settlement fee on the new loan, lenders mortgage insurance if your equity sits below twenty percent, and a break cost quoted by your lender if any part of your loan is fixed. That total is set against the saving, over your remaining term rather than a fresh thirty years.
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You gather
Documents
Only once the numbers justify moving. We confirm which of these your chosen lender actually wants before you go looking for any of them.
- Photo identification
- Two recent payslips
- Latest tax return or group certificate
- Six months of home loan statements
- Three to six months of bank statements
- Details of existing debts and card limits
- Council rates notice for the property
- Rental statement, if it is an investment
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We manage
Valuation then approval then discharge
We manage the valuation, the conditions and the lender communication, then coordinate the discharge with your outgoing lender so the two settlements meet. The handover between lenders is where refinances slip, and it is the part we watch hardest.
Track Record
Independent Since 2005
Joe Sukkar started in finance in 2000 and founded the practice five years later. Residential lending sits with Moufid, who works in it every day and has watched the assessment rules change three times.
Related Options
Other Ways to Restructure a Home Loan
Refinancing sits inside a wider set of residential options. These are the ones people land on next.
Cash-out refinance
When the point is releasing equity rather than improving the loan you already have.
Investment loans
Refinancing a rental property, where structure and deductibility both matter.
Second mortgage
When the first loan is worth keeping and the need is a further advance behind it.
Bridging loans
If the real problem is timing between buying the next place and selling this one.
Personal loans
A small, short debt is often cheaper left short than spread across thirty years.
Every home loan we arrange
Back up to the full residential range if none of these is quite it.
Tell Us Your Rate and Your Balance.
We’ll tell you whether moving is worth it, or whether to ring your own lender.Questions Answered
Refinance Home Loan FAQs
The questions people ask us most often before getting in touch.
What does it mean to refinance a home loan?
Refinancing means replacing your existing home loan with a new one, either with a different lender or with your current lender on different terms. It is treated as a new application, so the property is revalued and your income, expenses and debts are assessed against the lender’s current credit policy rather than the one that approved your original loan.
Why might I not qualify to refinance when I have never missed a repayment?
Because the new loan is assessed under today’s rules. APRA requires lenders to test you at your loan rate plus a buffer of at least 3 percentage points, so a loan taken out when rates were lower can be tested at a much higher figure now. Repayment history is not the test, although APRA has told lenders it can be considered in limited cases.
What does it cost to refinance a home loan?
Expect a discharge or termination fee from your current lender, mortgage deregistration and registration costs, and an application or settlement fee on the new loan. A valuation may be charged, lenders mortgage insurance may apply if your equity is under twenty percent, and a break cost applies if any part of your loan is fixed. Only your lender can quote that break cost.
Will I have to pay lenders mortgage insurance again if I refinance?
Possibly. Lenders mortgage insurance is generally charged where the new loan is above 80 percent of the lender’s valuation, and it protects the lender rather than you. It is assessed against the new loan and the new valuation, not carried over from the old one. ASIC suggests asking your current lender whether any of the original premium is refundable.
Should I ask my current lender for a better rate first?
Usually yes. ASIC’s own guidance is to tell your lender you are planning to switch, because it may reduce your rate to keep you. It costs nothing, needs no valuation and carries no exit costs. Refinancing earns its cost when the gap is structural, when you need equity or debts consolidated, or when your lender will not move.
Does refinancing restart my loan term?
It can, and that is the cost people miss. Rolling a loan with twenty-two years left into a new thirty-year term lowers the monthly repayment while raising the total interest paid. ASIC’s advice is to negotiate a loan of similar length to your current one. Compare the saving over your remaining term, not over a fresh thirty years.
Can I release equity when I refinance, and is the interest deductible?
Often yes, subject to the new valuation and the lender’s limits. Deductibility depends on use, not on the security. The ATO’s position is that interest is deductible only to the extent the borrowing produces assessable income, and a loan used for both private and income-producing purposes must be apportioned for the life of the loan. Confirm with a registered tax agent.
Does Best Interests Duty apply when I refinance, and what does Intellect Finance charge?
Yes it applies. Refinancing a home is regulated consumer credit, so mortgage brokers must act in your best interests and give priority to your interests where they conflict with ours. We charge you nothing, on any loan type, and we do not charge a clawback fee if you discharge early. Lenders pay a commission on settlement, disclosed in writing beforehand.
Visit Us
Penrith Based.Clients Australia-Wide.
Penrith is our head office and the one you can walk into without an appointment. We also meet clients at Parramatta and in the Sydney CBD by arrangement. Most refinances run by phone, email and video, so we settle loans in every state.
Parramatta
Suite 23, Level 1, 181 Church St, Parramatta NSW 2150
Mortgage broker Parramatta →Ready When You Are
What’s Your Rate and What’s Left on It?
Two numbers and fifteen minutes. We’ll tell you what leaving would cost, which lenders would read your file most favourably, and whether the gap justifies moving at all. If it doesn’t, we’ll tell you to ring your own lender instead. Penrith based, clients Australia-wide. Intellect Finance Pty Ltd, ACL 390611.
Refinancing an owner-occupied or residential investment home loan is regulated consumer credit, so Intellect Finance is legally required to act in your best interests under the Best Interests Duty in the National Consumer Credit Protection Act. Nothing on this page is credit assistance or an offer of credit, and no outcome is guaranteed.
Intellect Finance Pty Ltd | Australian Credit Licence 390611 | MFAA Member | AFCA Member
Important information General information only. Not credit assistance or an offer of credit. We charge you no fee. Every caveat and source on this page is collected here. Tap to read.
General information only. The content on this page is general in nature and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. It is not credit assistance, financial advice, legal advice or tax advice, and it is not an offer of credit. You should consider whether it is appropriate for you and seek your own advice before acting on it.
Nothing here is a guarantee. Loan approval, borrowing capacity, interest rates, loan to value ratios, valuations, timeframes and eligibility are determined by individual lenders and by independent valuers, not by us. They differ between lenders and change over time. Any figure, range or timeframe on this page is indicative and is not a quote, an offer, or a prediction of your outcome. Lenders mortgage insurance is generally charged where the loan is above 80 percent of the lender’s valuation, and it protects the lender rather than you. Break costs on a fixed portion of a loan are quoted by your existing lender, not by us.
Best Interests Duty. Home loans, including refinancing an owner-occupied home or a residential investment property, are regulated consumer credit under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009. When providing credit assistance in relation to these products, Intellect Finance is required to act in your best interests and, where there is a conflict of interest, to give priority to your interests. These obligations have applied to mortgage brokers since 1 January 2021.
Tax. The deductibility of interest depends on what borrowed funds are actually used for and on your own circumstances. We are not tax agents or accountants. Confirm your position with a registered tax agent or the Australian Taxation Office before drawing or redrawing funds against your property.
How we are paid. Intellect Finance does not charge borrowers a fee for arranging finance, and does not charge a clawback fee where a loan is discharged early. Lenders pay us a commission on settlement. The basis of that commission is disclosed to you in writing in our Credit Guide before any credit assistance is provided.
Third-party information. Where this page refers to regulatory settings, tax treatment or lender policy, that information is sourced from the relevant authority and was correct to the best of our knowledge at the date shown on this page. Those rules change, sometimes without notice. Always confirm the current position with the issuing authority or with us before relying on it.
Found something wrong? If you believe anything on this page is inaccurate or out of date, tell us at joe@intellectfinance.com.au and we will review and correct it.
Intellect Finance Pty Ltd | Australian Credit Licence 390611 | MFAA Member | AFCA Member