Your home loan: what could save you the most
The short answer
When we spoke last, you asked whether moving your loan could work, given you would pay Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI) again. Here is what I found.
Why paying fortnightly takes years off
It looks like the same repayment, but the calendar works in your favour.
12 becomes 13
There are 26 fortnights in a year. Half a repayment, 26 times, makes 13 monthly repayments, not 12.
One extra repayment a year
Interest is worked out daily
Your bank works out interest on each day's balance. A lower balance sooner means less interest, every day.
Ask NAB to set it at exactly half your monthly repayment. A lower fortnightly figure would lose the extra repayment.
Your four options, side by side
Each one keeps your repayment the same, paid as half every fortnight, so the comparison is fair.
1. Stay with NAB, pay fortnightly
2. Move, and pay LMI again
3. Move, with your LMI refund
4. Move at 85%, with no LMI
Where 6.49%* comes from: my lender comparison tool, on 5 November. It's the lowest variable rate shown for a refinance at your LVR, leaving out loans limited to certain jobs or purposes.
How long until the loan is gone
Years to pay it off with each option, at the rates in the options above.*
Try your own numbers
The yellow boxes are yours to change. Everything on this page updates as you type. These figures are the ones you told me when we spoke last, so please correct anything I have wrong.
How LMI works in your case
It doesn't move with you
NAB says its LMI can't be moved across to another lender when you refinance.
Part may come back
New LMI goes on the loan
You wouldn't pay it in cash, but you would pay interest on it for years.
The 90% line
85% with no LMI
For engineers
The LMI waivers I know of are for others, such as medical and legal jobs.
Your property report
This is the report I showed you. It's a computer estimate, so a bank valuation could land differently, and that valuation decides how much LMI applies.
Photos on this page are from the Ross Realty listing of your home.
Worth a read
Three short Mortgage Choice fact sheets, picked for where you are up to.
What would help me next
Your eMail address
So I can send you a secure link to upload everything below.
Your recent payslips
The two most recent from each of you, for the basics.
Your driver's licences
Both of them, so I can get your credit files with your consent.
Your latest NAB statement
It confirms your balance, your rate and any redraw.
Your LMI paperwork
The LMI amount, settlement date and insurer's name.
A coffee, when it suits
Have a chat with Negin first. There's no rush at all.
This page gives general information only and is not a loan offer, an approval or personal financial advice. The figures are estimates from what you told me, a computer property estimate and rates from before the Reserve Bank's rise on 3 November 2026. They hold each rate for the whole loan and leave out fees, and rates will move. The LMI figure is my estimate until a lender quotes it. NAB's LMI page sets out its refund rules, and NAB would need to confirm how they apply to you.
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