This mortgage market update writes itself, because our clients keep asking the same three questions. Fair enough too: inflation is running at 4%, the RBA has hiked three times this year to 4.35%, and power bills are up 21% now the rebates are gone. Here are the three questions, and the honest answers.

Got a question of your own? Send it to startnow@sorenfinancial.com — real questions from readers are where half our posts come from.

Question 1: Will rates keep going up?

Nobody knows, including the people paid to know. What we can tell you is what the market is pricing: heading into the 11 August RBA meeting, the OurTop10 Rate Prediction Index has it at 77.7% hold, 22.3% hike and 0% cut, with the economist panel split 5 hold to 2 hike. Read that as: probably a pause, a real chance of one more, and nobody serious is forecasting relief at the next meeting.

Question 2: Should I fix my rate?

The 2026 version of this answer is more interesting than usual, because some lenders are pricing 2-year fixed rates below their variable. Whether fixing, splitting or staying variable suits you depends on your numbers and your nerves — we wrote the full decision framework in is now the time to fix my home loan, including why a split loan is the underrated middle path.

Question 3: Can I still borrow what I could last year?

Probably not, and this is the answer people least want to hear. Each 0.25% hike trims a bit over 2% off your maximum borrowing capacity once lenders re-test your file at the higher assessment rate, so the three hikes of 2026 have taken roughly 6-7% since January. If you have a pre-approval about to expire, do not assume it renews at the same number — we covered the maths in our borrowing capacity update.

What changed since our last mortgage market update?

Whiplash, mostly. Through 2025 the RBA cut three times, taking the cash rate from 4.35% down to 3.60% by August, and held it there into December. Then 2026 arrived with three straight hikes — February, March and May — putting the cash rate right back at 4.35% where it started. Two years of movement, and rates are exactly where they were. The households who did well out of that round trip were the ones who banked the 2025 cuts as extra repayments instead of extra spending; the ones hurting are those who borrowed to their limit at the bottom.

What this mortgage market update means for you

Three takeaways. If you are holding a loan, benchmark your rate now — repricing is free and the loyalty tax is real. If you are about to buy, get your pre-approval refreshed before the 11 August decision rather than after it. And if you are on the fence about fixing, make the call on your numbers, not the news cycle. We publish a mortgage market update whenever the questions coming into our inbox change, so the fastest way to stay current is to send us yours.

Moral of the story: the market is asking harder questions in 2026, but they all have workable answers if you run the numbers early. Get in touch at startnow@sorenfinancial.com, or start with our calculators. Client reviews on OurTop10.