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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Fewer Queenslanders are asking lenders for a new home loan, and fewer still are asking to move the one they have. Figures from the credit bureau Equifax, reported by The Adviser on Tuesday 16 June 2026, show refinancing enquiries in Queensland in May were 8.8 per cent lower than in May 2025. Enquiries from first home buyers in the state fell 16.2 per cent over the same period, the largest drop among the five mainland states.
The numbers describe a market that turned within a few months. In January, national mortgage demand was running 10.7 per cent above the level of a year earlier. By May it was 6.6 per cent below.
Equifax credit enquiry data, May 2026 compared with May 2025, as reported by The Adviser on 16 June 2026.
What Equifax counts
A credit bureau sees a home loan at the moment it is applied for. When a borrower lodges an application, the lender makes an enquiry on that person's credit file, and the bureau records it. Counting those enquiries gives an early reading of demand: it moves weeks before a loan is approved and months before it settles and reaches the official lending statistics.
The measure has limits. An enquiry is not an approval, and one household shopping around can generate more than one. It says how many people are knocking, not how many are let in. Its value is speed, and the direction it shows.
On that reading the turn in 2026 was sharp. According to The Adviser's report, overall mortgage demand was 10.7 per cent higher in January than a year earlier, slipped to a fall of 0.9 per cent in April and dropped 6.6 per cent in May.
Related readJune minutes: mortgage payments are up, but lighter than last time| Kind of enquiry | January 2026 | May 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| All mortgage demand | Up 10.7% | Down 6.6% |
| First home buyers | Up 7.1% | Down 9.1% |
| Refinancing, all | Up 12.4% | Down 5.6% |
| Refinancing with the same lender | Up 16.2% | Down 7.0% |
| Refinancing with a different lender | Up 8.6% | Down 4.2% |
Equifax, as reported by The Adviser on 16 June 2026. Each figure compares the month with the same month of 2025.
Every line of the table tells the same story in a different size. The category that grew fastest in January, refinancing with the borrower's existing lender, also swung the furthest.
The Queensland figures
Equifax published state figures for two of those categories. In refinancing, all five mainland states recorded a fall in May. Victoria's was the largest at 11.6 per cent, followed by South Australia at 11.5 per cent, New South Wales at 9.2 per cent, Queensland at 8.8 per cent and Western Australia at 7.9 per cent.
Among first home buyers Queensland led the decline. New first-buyer mortgage enquiries fell 16.2 per cent in Queensland, 15.3 per cent in Victoria, 12.3 per cent in New South Wales, 11.9 per cent in South Australia and 8.4 per cent in Western Australia.
The state figures are noticeably larger than the national ones quoted beside them, and The Adviser's report does not explain the difference. The safest reading is to compare state with state and not to set a state figure against the national line.
Why Queensland's first-buyer enquiries should fall hardest is not something the data can answer. Cotality figures reported by The Adviser on 18 June offer one plausible ingredient. Home values in Brisbane were still rising in May, up 0.9 per cent in the month and 3.4 per cent over the quarter, while Sydney and Melbourne were falling. A buyer in Brisbane has faced higher rates and higher prices at the same time, where a buyer in the southern capitals has at least seen prices ease.
Related readSuncorp Bank tells 1.2 million customers their banking moves to ANZWhy fewer people are refinancing
A fall in refinancing while rates are rising can look odd. Higher repayments are the usual reason to shop for a cheaper loan, and lenders have been cutting rates for new customers to attract exactly that business.
Moses Samaha, an executive general manager at Equifax, gave the bureau's explanation in the report. After three successive increases in the cash rate, he said, the effect had well and truly arrived. He added that some borrowers may be stuck: unable to refinance because they no longer pass a new lender's serviceability test, with living costs adding to the pressure.
The mechanism behind "stuck" is the buffer every bank must apply. A new lender treats a refinance as a new loan and tests whether the household could afford repayments at a rate 3 percentage points above the rate it is offering. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority confirmed on 28 May that the buffer stays at 3 points. A household that borrowed close to its limit in 2024 or 2025 was tested at a lower starting rate than applies today. After increases in February, March and May, the same income may not stretch to the same loan at a different bank, even though the household has never missed a repayment.
The table also separates two kinds of refinancing. Moving to a different lender means a full new application. Refinancing with the same lender usually means asking for a better rate or a different product, with less paperwork. Both fell in May, and the internal kind fell further, from the strongest growth in January to the larger of the two declines.
Related readAfter the June hold: what a 4.35 per cent cash rate costs borrowersWhat a borrower who cannot switch can still do
Not being able to move lender does not mean being unable to lower a rate. Moneysmart, the consumer site of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, puts the existing lender first in its guide to switching: tell the lender a move is being considered, because it may reduce the rate to keep the customer. A borrower with at least 20 per cent equity or a strong credit record is in a better position to ask, according to the same guide.
Moneysmart also notes that variable home loan rates on the market can differ by more than 2 percentage points, which is the reason a periodic review is worthwhile at all. Where a move is possible, it lists the costs to weigh against the saving: a discharge fee on the old loan, an application fee on the new one, a break fee if the loan is fixed, and lenders mortgage insurance if equity is below 20 per cent. It suggests keeping the new loan's term in line with what remains on the old one, so the debt is not stretched out again.
For a household under real strain the route is different. A borrower who cannot meet repayments can ask the lender for a hardship variation, and Moneysmart says the lender must give its answer in writing within 21 days.
Who else is pulling back
The fall is not confined to the young. Equifax's age breakdown, comparing May 2026 with May 2025, shows new mortgage demand down 11.2 per cent among people aged 18 to 25, 16.3 per cent among those aged 26 to 35, 12 per cent for ages 36 to 45, 11.9 per cent for ages 46 to 55 and 13.5 per cent for ages 56 to 65.
Related readOffset balances drop by a record $8.6 billion as loan arrears climbThe steepest fall is in the 26 to 35 group, the age at which most people buy a first home. The decline among borrowers in their late fifties and early sixties is nearly as large, which suggests upgraders and downsizers are waiting as well.
Mr Samaha's summary was that government support for buyers had been washed out by the realities of a high-rate market. The expanded 5 per cent deposit guarantee lifted first-buyer activity late in 2025 and into January. By May the effect of three rate increases on what a buyer could borrow had outweighed it.
What it means and what comes next
For Queensland sellers and their agents, enquiry data is a forward signal. Loan enquiries made in May become approvals in June and purchases over the winter. Fewer enquiries now points to fewer financed buyers at open homes in the weeks ahead, particularly at the entry level where first home buyers compete.
For lenders, the figures explain the pricing of the past six weeks. With fewer applications arriving, several have cut rates for new customers to win a larger share of a smaller pool.
For mortgage brokers, who now arrange most new home loans, a quieter pipeline of purchases and a harder refinance test shift the work towards reviewing existing clients' rates with their current lender. That is less visible in the statistics, because a rate reduction negotiated without a new application leaves no enquiry on a credit file, and it is one reason enquiry counts can understate how many households have improved their position.
For borrowers, the message is narrower than the headline. Most households are not stuck, and most have not asked. The figures show fewer people testing the market, not a market that has closed.
Equifax publishes a fuller quarterly report on consumer credit demand, and the next one will cover the June quarter. The Reserve Bank's Monetary Policy Board left the cash rate at 4.35 per cent on 16 June, its first meeting of the year without an increase since the tightening began in February, so the June figures will show whether a pause is enough to bring borrowers back.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
