How do I get the best home loan rate?

Ratesniffers' 12 July 2026 snapshot shows a 20 basis point gap between the cheapest rate at a 60% loan to value ratio and the cheapest at 95%. Here's what actually moves the rate a lender offers you, in order of impact.

6 min read·Reviewed 12 July 2026·Ratesniffers Editorial Team

How do I get the best home loan rate?

Getting the best home loan rate comes down to three levers: shrinking your loan to value ratio, comparing the whole market rather than only your own bank, and using the comparison rate, not the headline rate, to judge offers. Ratesniffers' 12 July 2026 data shows the cheapest owner-occupier variable rate at a 60% loan to value ratio is 5.74% p.a., against 5.94% p.a. at 95%, a 20 basis point gap driven entirely by deposit size at the same lender.

Shrink your loan to value ratio first

Lenders price risk in tiers, and a bigger deposit relative to the property value consistently unlocks a cheaper rate band, independent of anything else about your application. The table below shows today's cheapest tracked owner-occupier variable rate at each common loan to value tier.

Loan to value ratio	Cheapest tracked rate, 12 Jul 2026
60% or less	5.74% p.a.
70%	5.74% p.a.
80%	5.89% p.a.
90%	5.89% p.a.
95%	5.94% p.a.

If you're close to a lower loan to value tier, for example just above 80%, paying down a small extra amount or waiting for a valuation bump can be enough to cross the threshold and unlock a cheaper rate band.

Compare the whole market, not just your own bank

Your existing lender only has to beat what you're prepared to accept, not the sharpest rate genuinely available. Ratesniffers tracks 66 lenders on owner-occupier variable rates alone, and the spread between the cheapest and most expensive tracked rate is currently 276 basis points, so checking beyond your own bank is where most of the realistic saving sits.

Compare using the comparison rate, not the headline rate

A low headline rate can still work out expensive once application, ongoing, and discharge fees are added in, which is exactly what the comparison rate is designed to capture in a single, legally standardised number. Two products advertising the same headline rate can have meaningfully different comparison rates once fees are counted, so always line up comparison rate against comparison rate when weighing offers.

Pick the loan type that actually matches how you'll use it

An offset account, extra repayments, and redraw all cost more than a bare-bones loan in most cases, so paying for features you won't use is a quiet way to end up on a worse rate than necessary. Conversely, if you genuinely hold savings that offset a large chunk of your balance, a slightly higher rate with a full offset account can beat a cheaper rate with none, once the effective interest saved is counted.

Ask, and use a genuine competing offer as leverage

Once you've found a sharper rate elsewhere, calling your existing lender's retention team with that specific offer in hand is often enough to get matched or beaten without switching at all, since retaining an existing loan is cheaper for a lender than winning a new one.

References

ASIC MoneySmart: Comparing home loans, Consumer guidance on comparison rates and shopping around
RBA: Cash rate target, Current cash rate, the base every variable rate is priced against

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