With the owner occupier mortgage market worth about $1 trillion, the latest research by DBM Consultants through its ongoing Consumer ATLAS survey reveals that 8 per cent of Australians with a home loan intend to switch from their current lender in the next 12 months.

This equates to up to $100 billion of owner occupied mortgages on lenders’ books at risk of switching hands.

DBM’s Research Director, Dhruba Gupta, said that these results are good news for lenders outside of the ‘Big 4’ banks trying to grow their share.

“With historically high property prices across Australia and the continual pressure on the cost of living, it’s only natural for owner occupier borrowers to re-assess whether they can get a better deal elsewhere”.

Gupta added, “What this result shows is that whilst the majority of owner occupier loans are already with the Big 4, they also stand the most to lose if those intending to switch take the next step. We’ve also seen with our Consumer ATLAS study that general consideration for a home loan with a non-major bank appears to be steadily increasing over time relative to consideration for the Big 4. All lenders will have to watch whether these attitudes start converting into metrics with commercial implications such as increased loan enquiries with non-major lenders. We’re also seeing that customers more likely to switch mortgage lenders are those with larger mortgages. They also tend to be in higher income households, professional and higher educated.”