Lender wars: The secrets to locking down the best home loan

Rising living costs and high interest rates are putting mortgage holders under renewed pressure, prompting a growing number of homeowners to reassess their finances and hunt for a better home loan deal.Refinancing your home loan is essentially taking out a new home loan to pay off your existing loan. In periods of high inflation or economic downturn, like Australia is currently experiencing, it's a popular option for many looking to control costs.Experts say the process is simpler than it was some years ago, but it is important to consider more than just the interest rate when making the switch, especially as competition between lenders heats up.Mortgage Choice broker Duane Mengel said more often than not, life events triggered mortgage holders to look at refinancing, and at the moment many of his clients were “bunkering down".“They're checking all of their costs and making sure they're not paying any more than they need to for streaming services, insurances…,” he said.“I'm speaking to a lot of my customers who are looking at every aspect of their financial life and making sure they're not leaking money because if you don't look at this on a regular basis, you will leak money very ...