Refinancing activity keeps rising

Home owners refinanced a record $21.5 billion of mortgages in July, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

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That beat the previous record of $21.2 billion, which was set in March.

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Breaking down those numbers, owner-occupier refinancing (the middle line in the graph) also reached a new high in July, although investor refinancing (the bottom line) was slightly below the previous record.

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One reason refinancing activity is so strong right now is that a lot of borrowers are coming to the end of fixed-rate loan terms that began in 2020-21 – when interest rates were much lower – and are reverting to much higher variable rates. As a result, mortgage brokers are now helping those borrowers refinance to lower variable rates with other lenders.