If you haven't reviewed your loan in two years, you're likely paying for the privilege.

Refinancing isn't automatically the answer, and anyone who tells you it always is has something to sell. But the review is free, takes a short conversation, and often turns up a meaningful difference.

What refinancing can achieve

• A lower interest rate
• Better loan features – offset, redraw, split facilities
• Consolidating other debts into one repayment
• Accessing equity for a renovation, an investment or another purchase
• Restructuring after a change in circumstances

When refinancing isn't worth it

Worth saying plainly, because it comes up often:

• You're in a fixed term. Break costs can wipe out the benefit entirely.
• Your equity position is thin. If you'd trigger LMI again, the sums often don't work.
• Your circumstances have changed recently. A new business, a career break or reduced income can mean a new lender assesses you less favourably than your current one already has.
• The saving is marginal. Switching costs time and paperwork. A tiny rate difference may not justify it.

Sometimes the better move is asking your current lender to reprice. That costs nothing and occasionally works. I'll tell you when that's the sensible first step.

A note on debt consolidation

Rolling credit cards or personal loans into a mortgage lowers the interest rate on that debt, which looks like an obvious win. The catch is the term: stretching a five-year debt across twenty-five years can mean paying more in total interest despite the lower rate.

It can still be the right call, particularly where cash flow is the immediate problem. But it should be a decision made with the full numbers visible, and ideally alongside a plan to pay the consolidated portion down faster.