Should you fix your mortgage in the face of a looming rate rise?

September 27, 2026 — 3:00am

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If you’re a mortgage holder, you’re not sitting − hopefully just metaphorically − in a very comfortable place this weekend.

All of our biggest lenders predict that on Tuesday there will be another interest rate increase. And it may well be backed up by a second one on Melbourne Cup Day.

That would take it to five for the year, when several months ago talk had turned comprehensively to cuts.

It would also mean a cash rate of 4.85 per cent … the highest since 2008.

So, today, we are discussing whether you should fix your home loan interest rate.

On a now fairly typical $700,000 loan, each rate rise adds more than $100 a month to repayments.

That’s of course on top of an escalation in the price of pretty much everything else and, particularly, petrol prices again.

That’s the issue at the centre of a “Hail Mary” mortgage fix.

Reserve Bank’s blunt warning just days before next interest rates decision

And it’s about this time, crunch time for interest rates, that some borrowers’ thoughts finally turn to it. Many of us are stretched and stressed already financially, and fixing seems a good way, albeit a crisis way, of containing that.

Indeed, the latest intel from Finder is that nearly a third of mortgage holders (29 per cent) have now made the move to fully fix.

But fixing at this late stage may not be the best idea.

The fixing dilemma, and........

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