Homeowner Danica Robinson is refinancing to get ahead of her home loan. Picture: Glenn Hampson
Four years into her mortgage, homeowner Danica Robinson rewound the clock to a 30-year loan — and saved $100 a week.
The sales professional bought a brand-new, three-bedroom beachside townhouse on the Gold Coast for $975,000 in 2021, locking in a three-year fixed rate of 2.9 per cent when the official cash rate sat at a historic low of 0.10 per cent.
Ms Robinson rented out the property for $1000 a week, making it positively geared while she continued living in Sydney.
“I’d been saving for a deposit for a few years while renting in the coastal areas of Sydney but I had been priced out of that market, so I started looking elsewhere for the kind of lifestyle I wanted without being locked into an intense corporate job just to afford it,” the 35-year-old said.
Ms Robinson moved to the Gold Coast in 2024
She moved into the home in September 2024, but months later her fixed rate expired, pushing her mortgage rate to just under 6 per cent. The timing coincided with taking on a lower-paid local role, further tightening her household budget.
“The impact of coming off the fixed rate was massive,” Ms Robinson said. “It had taken me two and a half years to save quite a substantial cash reserve after buying the house, and it was scary to see those emergency funds just eaten away over the year.”
With a new car loan adding another layer of debt to her outgoings, Ms Robinson found even taking on a flatmate didn’t ease the pressure of rising repayments.
She ruled out selling or downsizing, citing capital gains tax, instead meeting with Mortgage Choice broker Richard Brown to reassess her options.
She met with a broker to discuss her options to improve cash flow. Picture: Glenn Hampson
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A solution was refinancing by extending the remaining 27 years of her loan back out to 30, cutting repayments by about $100 a week.
“I know a lot of people would advise against increasing the longevity of my loan…but for me it is just having the lightness that comes with having the safety of your emergency fund for when something goes wrong with the car, or just knowing that when life does happen it is not going to be a complete stress,” she said.
Mr Brown said extending a loan term could be an effective short-term strategy for borrowers juggling multiple debts, provided the long-term interest costs were understood.
“It may not be right for everybody, but [it is] one way of taking pressure off your household budget,” he said.
Unit prices in the Southern Gold Coast area have soared close to 15 per cent in the past year
Mr Brown said the impact of mortgage repayments were often overlooked by families, despite representing a huge chunk of the household budget.
“But looking at your interest rate and your terms is a really quick and simple way to potentially save substantial amounts of money.”
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