Refinancing
Refinance your home loan, or make your lender earn it.
Most people's loans quietly drift onto a worse rate than their lender offers new customers. A refinance review compares your loan against 35+ lenders, and sometimes the best move is making your current lender match, which costs you nothing at all.
Rated 5.0 from 261 Google reviews · Brisbane finance brokers
- Loan review against 35+ lenders, including your own
- Lower repayments, debt consolidation, or equity out for the next move
- Ongoing repricing after you switch, so the drift never restarts
Three reasons people refinance.
Almost every refinance is one of these:
- Rate and repayments: the loyalty tax is real; long-standing customers routinely pay more than new ones for the same loan
- Consolidation: rolling cards and personal loans into the mortgage to cut the total interest bill (with a plan so the debt doesn't creep back)
- Equity: funding renovations, an investment property or the next stage, using the value your home has built
What switching actually costs.
Refinancing has real costs, and the honest way to decide is to put them against the saving. The typical bill: a discharge fee from your old lender (usually $150-$400), government fees to release and register the mortgage (a few hundred dollars), and sometimes an application or settlement fee with the new lender, though many charge nothing and some pay cashbacks that more than cover the switch.
Two costs deserve special care. Break costs on a fixed rate can run to thousands and depend on wholesale rates at the moment you break, so we get the exact payout figure before recommending anything. And if your equity is under 20% of the property's value, a new lender will charge lenders mortgage insurance again, even if you paid it once already. LMI re-triggering kills more refinances than any other single number, and we check it first.
The refinance process, step by step.
Refinancing is far less work than the original purchase. The realistic timeline:
- Review (days): we compare your loan against 35+ lenders, including a repricing request to your own
- Application (about a week): one application to the chosen lender, prepared and submitted by us
- Approval and valuation (one to two weeks): many refinance valuations are desktop, which speeds things up
- Discharge and settlement (two to four weeks): your old lender is often the slow party, and we chase them so you don't have to
A worked example: the loyalty tax in dollars.
Suppose you owe $600,000 and your rate has drifted 0.5 percentage points above what the same lender offers a new customer for the same loan. That gap alone costs about $3,000 a year in extra interest ($600,000 x 0.5%). Against typical switching costs of well under $1,000, often with a cashback on top, the payback period is measured in months. This is an example, not a quote: your gap might be larger or smaller, and the review measures it precisely.
The same arithmetic shows when switching isn't worth it: a 0.1 point gap on a $300,000 balance is $300 a year ($300,000 x 0.1%), which a repricing call can usually close with no paperwork at all.
When refinancing isn't worth it.
Honest answer: sometimes it isn't. Fixed-rate break costs, small balances, short remaining terms or LMI re-triggering (if your equity is under 20%) can eat the gain. Part of the review is telling you when to stay put, and then squeezing your current lender for a better deal instead. That repricing call takes us minutes.
Mistakes that eat the savings.
The refinances that disappoint usually made one of these calls:
- Chasing a cashback onto a loan with a worse rate: the bonus is gone in a year, the rate lasts decades
- Resetting a loan you've paid down for years to a fresh 30-year term without keeping repayments up: lower monthly cost, more total interest
- Consolidating short-term debts into the mortgage, then rebuilding the card balances
- Comparing headline rates while ignoring offsets, fees and how you actually bank
- Breaking a fixed rate without getting the exact break cost first
Start with the health check.
The home loan health check takes two minutes and tells you whether your loan is worth reviewing: rate drift, structure, offset use and fit. If it flags a gap, the broker review does the real comparison.
Why LINK Advance.
The whole market, incl. your lender.
Sometimes the win is a switch; sometimes it's your own bank matching. We play both.
Numbers before names.
You see the savings math (rate, fees, break costs, cashbacks) before any application.
Repricing forever.
After you settle, we keep going back to the lender when the market moves. Most clients never need to refinance twice.
Your broker, not a call centre.
Hugh, Callum and Jacob write every loan themselves: the person who meets you is the person who structures the deal, drives the approval and reprices your rate every six months after settlement. That's why 262 Google reviews name them personally.
Meet the team →What people who refinanced say about it.
Reviews from clients who came in to refinance, including the ones we repriced without switching lenders.
We recently refinanced our home loan and couldn't be happier with the service from Jacob. Communication was outstanding from start to finish. We were kept informed every step of the way and nothing was ever too much trouble. He made the whole process easy, stress-free, and helped us get a great outcome. An absolute legend to deal with, incredibly knowledgeable, professional, and genuinely the coolest guy ever. If you're looking for a mortgage broker who goes above and beyond, we couldn't recommend him highly enough!
Seamless experience dealing with Hugh and the Link Advance team to refinance our home. Thank you!
The Team at Link Advance at fantastic!!! Just renegotiated my home loan and extremely happy with the result!!! Thank you!
261 Google reviews at 5.0. Read them in full, filtered by what people came in for.
Frequently asked questions.
How much does it cost to refinance?
Typical costs are a discharge fee from your old lender (usually $150-$400), government registration fees (a few hundred dollars), and possibly a new application fee, often offset by lender cashbacks. If you're on a fixed rate, break costs can be significant; we calculate them before recommending anything.
Will refinancing hurt my credit score?
A single refinance application has a small, short-lived effect. What hurts scores is scattering applications across multiple lenders, which is exactly what going direct tends to do, and what a broker avoids by applying once, to the right lender.
How often should I review my home loan?
Annually, or whenever rates move meaningfully. That doesn't mean refinancing annually. Most reviews end with a repricing call to your existing lender, which costs nothing and takes days.
Can I refinance to consolidate debts?
Usually, if you have the equity and the income to service the consolidated loan. It can cut your total interest dramatically, but stretching a car loan over 30 years costs more in the end unless you keep repayments up. We structure it so the win is real.
Can I get cash out for renovations or investing?
If your equity supports it, yes. Lenders will typically lend up to 80% of your property's value without LMI. The refinancing review shows your usable equity and what accessing it does to repayments.
How long does refinancing take?
Four to eight weeks end to end is typical: days for the comparison, about a week for the application, one to two weeks for approval, and the rest waiting on your old lender's discharge team. A repricing outcome with your existing lender takes days. If you're working to a deadline (a fixed rate expiring, a purchase settling), tell us and we pick lenders that are fast right now.
Do I have to refinance to get a better rate?
No, and often you shouldn't. Lenders hold their sharpest pricing for customers who ask, and a repricing request (which we make for you) frequently closes most of the gap without switching. Refinancing wins when your lender won't move, when the structure is wrong, or when you need equity out or debts consolidated.
Can I refinance if my property has gone up in value?
Rising value helps twice: it can push your equity past 20%, removing LMI from the equation and unlocking sharper pricing tiers, and it increases the equity you can access for renovations or investing. The new lender's valuation sets the number, and valuations vary between lenders; when a result looks light we test it elsewhere.
What documents do I need to refinance?
Less than you'd think: identification, recent payslips or financials, statements for the loan you're refinancing and any other debts, and a council rates notice for the property. Most of it is digital now. We hand you a short checklist and do the assembly.
Your broker for life.
One review. Two ways to win.
Either we find a sharper loan across 35+ lenders, or we make your current lender price-match. Both start with the same review.
Call us
07 2101 4374Find us
Level 1, 57 Berwick Street, Fortitude Valley 4006
5.0 · based on 261 Google reviews