Current figures
| Series | Rate | Change | Struck |
|---|---|---|---|
| Variable standard · owner-occupier (indicator) | 8.77% | unchanged | 10:00 AEST · WED 30 SEP |
| 3-year fixed · owner-occupier (indicator) | 7.02% | +0.28 pts | 10:00 AEST · WED 30 SEP |
| New loans · owner-occupier (avg rate paid) | 6.20% | unchanged | 10:00 AEST · MON 31 AUG |
| Outstanding loans · owner-occupier (avg rate paid) | 6.20% | unchanged | 10:00 AEST · MON 31 AUG |
| New loans · investor (avg rate paid) | 6.40% | unchanged | 10:00 AEST · MON 31 AUG |
| Outstanding loans · investor (avg rate paid) | 6.40% | unchanged | 10:00 AEST · MON 31 AUG |
Indicator lending rates (RBA table F5) and average outstanding/new lending rates (F6) · updated monthly. These are official averages and benchmarks - not product offers, and not a comparison of providers.
What these figures are
Two different kinds of average appear here, and the gap between them is the story. The indicator rows are the standard advertised reference rates (RBA table F5) - few borrowers actually pay them. The average-paid rows (F6) are the rates borrowers really pay on new and existing loans after discounts, which typically sit well below the advertised standard variable.
What the home loan rates table leaves out
The gap between an advertised rate and a paid rate is not an accounting artefact. It is made of discounts applied to individual loans and never published. No table can show a reader the rate they would be offered.
The competition regulator examined exactly this. Its home loan price inquiry found that headline variable rates, the ones borrowers rely on when shopping around, often do not reflect the rates most borrowers actually pay, and it attributed that to lenders’ use of what it called opaque discretionary discounts. The same inquiry found the discount is not evenly spread across borrowers. On average, the rate paid rose with the age of the loan: borrowers a few years in were paying more than the average paid on new loans, and borrowers more than ten years in were paying more again. A borrower’s rate therefore drifts away from the market not because anything was changed, but because nothing was.
What moves the series underneath all of that is the cost of the money being lent. The Reserve Bank’s work on bank funding describes lending rates as following funding costs, which come from retail and wholesale deposits, wholesale debt and equity. Short-term wholesale debt is priced against bank bill swap rates, the rates banks pay to borrow from each other for a few months. Those track the cash rate and expectations of where it is going, and are also moved by bank credit risk and by investor demand. The cash rate is the anchor, but the Bank is explicit that it is a benchmark rather than the only determinant, and that the spread between it and lending rates moves with competition and with the risk attached to different kinds of loan.
Longer read: What lenders mortgage insurance actually covers, and the costs outside the rate. Some of what a home loan costs sits outside the interest rate entirely, and one of those items insures somebody other than the person paying for it.
Estimate repayments with the mortgage repayment calculator and capacity with the borrowing power calculator. The cash rate sets the direction.