Home loan repayments calculator

Top tips for home loan repayments:

Work out a budget

When you’re shopping for a home loan, it’s important to have a budget worked out so you can be sure you’re not stretching yourself too thin when it comes to monthly repayments. Visit our budget calculator and crunch the numbers to work out how much you can afford to put toward your home loan each month. From there, you can use our borrowing calculator to determine what size home loan you can afford to borrow.

But don’t forget, you’ll also need to save up for a deposit, and the size of your deposit can also affect how much money a lender will give you.

1. Consider your home loan term

By changing the length of your home loan term, you can take control of your monthly payments. A longer term means lower monthly payments - useful if you’re on a tight budget - but will mean you ultimately pay more in interest over the life of your loan. A shorter term will increase your monthly payments, but you’ll pay the loan off quicker, and pay less interest in the long run.

1. Think about repayment frequency

Some lenders are flexible with their home loan repayment schedule, meaning you can choose to make repayments either monthly, fortnightly or weekly. While monthly might be more convenient, if you can afford to make weekly payments, it will actually save you money on interest by chipping away at your loan principal more often. Not all lenders offer this option though, so choose carefully.

1. Take out mortgage protection insurance

This insurance will cover your repayments for a set period of time if you can’t due to illness, injury, redundancy or divorce. It’s a good security net to have, because you never know what’s going to happen in the future. This is different from Lender's Mortgage Insurance, which you need to pay if you are borrowing more than 80% of the property value.

1. Use extra features

A lot of home loans come jam-packed with extra features to help you pay off the loan in a way that suits you. Read up on things like an offset account, extra repayments and a redraw facility and decide which ones might be useful for you. For example, plug your details into our extra repayments calculator and find out how much interest you could save by adding another $50 to your monthly repayments.

1. Compare home loans

The best way to save on your home loan repayments? Find the best home loan deal right off the bat! Keep an eye on the comparison rate when choosing a home loan, and don’t forget to shop around for the best features and bonus offers. If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed by options and don’t know where to start, head over to our home loan search tool and we’ll find you a selection of the home loans on the market that match your needs.

Bonus tip: Hover your mouse over the table to see a breakdown of how much of your repayment is interest and how much is going toward your loan balance.