2 in 5 Australians don’t know their home loan rate
Research shows a large proportion of borrowers take a “set and forget” attitude toward their home loan.
Research shows a large proportion of borrowers take a “set and forget” attitude toward their home loan.A Mortgage Choice survey found that 40% of Australians don’t know their current home loan interest rate, a figure Mortgage Choice chief executive John Flavell called “alarming”.
“It seems for many borrowers it is easy to take a set and forget attitude towards their mortgage. However, this can end up costing them substantially over the longer term,” Flavell said.
Flavell said borrowing rates had dropped significantly over the past two years, and that borrowers who had failed to review their home loan interest rate in this period were likely to be paying substantially more than necessary.
“In recent months, we have seen many of Australia’s lenders adjust the pricing across their owner-occupied and investment home loan products. These slight changes can make a significant difference to what a borrower has to pay each month,” he said.
Over-60s borrowers were the most likely to not know their interest rate, with 46% saying they weren’t sure. Just over 40% of borrowers under 30 did not know their home loan interest rate, while 26.9% of those aged from 30 to 39 said they didn’t know their rate.
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