Roasted: New tool reveals if your mortgage rate deserves an F
Key takeaways
- Finder's Roast My Rate will tell you how your rate stacks up (as gently or as brutally as you can handle).
- 1 in 4 mortgage holders expect to be home loan free within 5 years.
- How Roast My Rate works.
Hundreds of thousands of Australians are racing to pay their mortgage off ahead of schedule, and for anyone unsure whether their current rate is helping or hurting that goal, Finder has launched a new tool to find out.
According to Finder's 2026 Home Loan Report, 1 in 4 mortgage holders (25%) – equivalent to 825,000 people – expect to be completely debt-free within five years.
For some, the finish line is even closer, with 3% expecting to pay off their home loan within the next year and 7% within one to two years.
To help homeowners see if their mortgage is helping them get there, or holding them back, Finder has launched Roast My Rate.
It's a free tool that analyses a borrower's home loan and delivers instant, brutally honest feedback, plus a clear estimate of how much they could save by switching.
Richard Whitten, home loans expert at Finder, said mortgage freedom is becoming a goal for Australians well before traditional retirement age.
"Paying off a mortgage early can completely change your financial trajectory.
"Once your home loan is gone, hundreds or thousands of dollars a month can be redirected towards investing, super, travel or simply having more freedom over how you spend your money."
Whitten said becoming debt-free doesn't necessarily mean sacrificing everything in the present.
"There's a balance between aggressively paying down your mortgage and still enjoying your life today. The key is having a clear target and using strategies such as extra repayments or an offset account to bring that date forward without putting yourself under unnecessary financial pressure.
"Even a small improvement in your interest rate or a change to your repayment strategy can shave years off a home loan.
"That's why we built Roast My Rate. You tell us a bit about your loan, and within seconds the tool will give you an honest, sometimes brutal, verdict on your rate, plus a clear next step of what to do."
Finder's analysis shows that on a $500,000 loan over 30 years, a difference of just 0.50% in your interest rate adds up to more than $58,000 over the life of the loan.
How Roast My Rate works
- Borrowers share a few details about their current home loan – rate, loan balance, and years left.
- Borrowers can choose how "spicy" they want their feedback to be delivered.
- The tool instantly compares the borrower's results against the market's best available rates.
- Users can then compare better home loan rates and determine if they're able to save money by refinancing.
For more information visit Roast My Rate here.
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