Making changes to your home loan

Review your payments

It’s a good idea to review your payments every year or so. Take stock any time your circumstances change - maybe a new job, a pay rise, or a new baby – anything that impacts how much you can afford to pay.

If your circumstances have taken a turn for the better – a pay rise, for example – take a look at our repayments and structuring calculator to see what a difference increasing your payments could make.

On the other hand, if your income has dropped you may need to look at decreasing your payments, changing to interest-only payments, or seeing if you can have a repayment deferral.

It's also a good idea to make your payments fortnightly instead of monthly. Because there are 26 fortnights in a year, making fortnightly payments means you'll be making the equivalent of 13 monthly repayments rather than 12. You'll also be reducing the balance of your home loan, which is what the interest is calculated on, more quickly.

Give our home loans team a call on 0800 000 654 about your options and take a look at whether you’ll face restructure fees.

Keep an eye on interest rates

It pays to keep an eye on interest rates and make sure you’re getting the best deal possible. Compare current rates.

If you're on a fixed term rate

If rates have fallen since you fixed your home loan, you might be tempted to break your fixed term to take advantage of lower rates. If you do this, you may face a break cost. Give our home loans team a call on 0800 000 654 to work out if it’s worth breaking your term, or if the cost outweighs the benefits.

More about break costs.

When the fixed term is up

If you have a fixed rate mortgage have a think about how you want to structure your loan when the term comes to an end. Take a look at current rates and terms and decide if you want to re-fix your loan or change your loan (or part of it) to have a variable rate or be an offset loan. Download step-by-step instructions on how to re-fix on your mobile or desktop device.

If you're on a variable, or floating, rate

A variable rate gives you the flexibility to change things up whenever you want. Depending on your circumstances and what interest rates are doing you could opt to put your whole loan on floating rates, or have a mix of floating and fixed rates. This means you’ll have some flexibility to make extra or lump sum payments on the variable portion, as well as the certainty of knowing that payments on the fixed portion will be stable for a set time.