RateGapevery home loan rate lenders publish, compared
Before you fix your rate, check what the loan rolls onto afterwards
Your lender does not advertise that rate. But it gives it away in the comparison rate, and almost nobody reads it that way. I checked every Australian lender that publishes its home loan rates.
Justin Wong, first published 17 August 2026. The figures are read again every morning.
When a fixed term ends, your loan rolls onto a variable rate set by your contract. No lender advertises what that rate will be. Most of the time it is nothing to worry about: 77% of the 627 fixed loans I looked at roll onto less than the fixed rate they advertise. At today's prices that is a small drop, not a shock.
But 50 of them roll onto more than a full percentage point above their own advertised rate. Here is how to spot those. Put the comparison rate next to the advertised rate. If the comparison rate is more than about half a point higher, the loan rolls onto a high rate.
It flags 50 of those 50, which is arithmetic rather than a good hit rate. Over 25 years, a rate a full point above the advertised one cannot help but show in the comparison rate. The number worth reading is the other one. Across the 577 loans that roll onto something reasonable, the rule cries wolf 27 times.
Be clear about what this is. It is arithmetic, not a prediction. By law the comparison rate assumes a 25-year loan. So a three-year fixed rate's comparison rate is already three years at the advertised rate, blended with twenty-two years at whatever comes after. The rate you roll onto was never hidden. It was folded into a number your lender must publish, and I am reading it back out.
What this looks like in real life
Maitland Mutual Limited offers two fixed loans to people buying a home to live in, borrowing up to 95% of the value. Fixed for three years, they advertise rates within a tenth of a point of each other.
| Loan | Advertised | Comparison | Rolls onto |
|---|---|---|---|
| Package Home Loan | 6.44% | 6.87% | 6.55% |
| Standard Home Loan | 6.54% | 8.19% | 8.90% |
All but the same advertised rate. 2.35 percentage points apart once the three years are up. On a $500,000 loan that is about $11,767 a year in interest. The comparison rate is the only published number that tells them apart before you sign.
What loans roll onto, next to their own fixed rate
The loans that jump the most
| Lender | Loan | Amount borrowed | Advertised | Comparison | Rolls onto |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| People First and Heritage Bank | Standard Fixed Rate Home Loans - Owner Occupied | up to 95% of the value | 6.54% | 8.32% | 8.97% |
| Maitland Mutual Limited | Standard Home Loan | up to 95% of the value | 6.54% | 8.19% | 8.90% |
| Bankwest | Fixed Rate Home Loan | up to 80% of the value | 6.99% | 8.63% | 9.16% |
| Newcastle Permanent | Fixed Rate Home Loan Principal and Interest | up to 80% of the value | 6.49% | 7.94% | 8.52% |
| Newcastle Permanent | Fixed Rate Home Loan Principal and Interest | up to 80% of the value | 6.49% | 7.94% | 8.52% |
| Newcastle Permanent | Fixed Rate Home Loan Principal and Interest | up to 80% of the value | 6.49% | 7.83% | 8.52% |
| MyState Bank | Fixed Rate Loan | 70.01–80% of the value | 6.74% | 8.10% | 8.69% |
| MyState Bank | Fixed Rate Loan | up to 70% of the value | 6.69% | 8.09% | 8.61% |
| Newcastle Permanent | Fixed Rate Home Loan Principal and Interest | 80–95% of the value | 6.59% | 7.97% | 8.51% |
| Newcastle Permanent | Fixed Rate Home Loan Principal and Interest | 80–95% of the value | 6.59% | 7.97% | 8.51% |
How I worked this out
The law sets out exactly how a comparison rate must be calculated: a $150,000 loan paid off over 25 years. A fixed rate cannot cover all 25 years, so the sum has to assume something about the rest of them. Once you know the advertised rate, the fixed term and the published comparison rate, that assumption is the only thing left unknown — so you can work backwards to it.
Two things are really unknown: the rate the loan rolls onto, and its annual fee. They leave opposite fingerprints across a lender's range of fixed terms. The longer the term, the less a fee moves the comparison rate, and the more the roll-on rate moves it. So I solve for both at once, by finding the pair that makes a lender's one to five year terms agree with each other. How closely those terms agree is the margin of error. Across this sample they agree to within 0.009 of a percentage point.
The real test is against numbers I never used. The sum never looks at a single variable rate, yet the answers it produces should land on variable rates the same lenders publish. This morning they do. Apollo's 6 owner-occupied lines work out to 6.36, 6.36, 6.41, 6.41, 6.46, 6.46, against published variable rates of 6.34, 6.34, 6.39, 6.39, 6.44, 6.44. Athena Home Loans' 6 owner-occupied lines work out to 6.24, 6.24, 6.27, 6.27, 6.29, 6.29, against published variable rates of 6.24, 6.24, 6.29, 6.29, 6.29, 6.29.
What this does not tell you
It is not a prediction. These are today's rates. Fix for three years today and you meet your lender's variable rate in 2029, not this one. What this tells you is which rate your contract points at — the standard variable rate, or a discounted one. It cannot tell you what that rate will be by the time you get there.
It comes out of the comparison rate. I work the roll-on rate out from the comparison rate, so "the comparison rate spots the bad ones" is close to going in a circle. That is not the point. The point is that the answer was published all along, and almost nobody reads it this way.
A bigger fee does not mean a better rate later. At Westpac and Bankwest the dearer packaged loan rolls onto far less, and it is tempting to think the fee is buying you that. But across every lender offering loans with very different fees for the same amount borrowed, the dearer one rolls onto less only about a third of the time. Do not assume the expensive one is looking after you.
Not every loan rolls onto the standard variable rate. Some contracts point at whatever discounted rate applies at the time. Where my figure sits well above anything the lender currently sells, read it as the most they could charge rather than the rate you would actually meet. Lenders also cut rates when you ask, which published data cannot see.
Loans I cannot tell apart are left out, not guessed at. The sum needs three or more fixed terms on the same loan. Where a lender publishes several loans in one band and the published details cannot separate them, I leave them out.
This is general information about published rates. It is not financial or credit advice, and not a recommendation of any loan or lender. These figures are worked out from what lenders publish, and they may be wrong. Check anything that matters with the lender or your own adviser before you act on it.