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Straight Answers · Refinancing
Should I combine my home loans into one, or keep them separate?
Bayley Clarke · Mortgage broker on the road · Last checked 3 September 2026 · 3 min read
The short answer
It depends on how you want to bucket your money and what those loans were used for originally. Anything borrowed for an investment purpose stays as its own loan. Full stop.
Beyond that, it's how you run your world. Some people want one loan and one repayment. Others want the money they pulled out for a car or a renovation sitting as its own split, so they can see it and pay it off fast instead of over 30 years. Both are fine as long as it's deliberate.
The 90 second version. The rest of this page is the detail underneath it.
Rule one: split by purpose, for your accountant's sake
If you've pulled money out to buy an investment property, or an asset that is deemed investment purpose, your accountant is not going to be very happy with me if I put that loan together with the loan for the property you're living in. It's a very annoying thing for the accountant to try and figure out how much of the interest is actually deductible for your tax return.
So generally you want your loans split based on whether they're owner-occupied purpose or investment purpose. That's not a preference, it's the line the tax office cares about. Blend the two and every interest statement becomes a spreadsheet exercise for the rest of the loan.
Rule two: split by what you want to pay off fast
Whether you split your loans further from there depends on how you run your world. Sometimes people pull out money to buy a car. What we'll do is keep their original home loan, and then have a separate home loan that is the money for the car, so they know which one is which and can focus on paying the car loan off as soon as possible. You're not paying off a car over 30 years.
Same thing for renovations. Have a separate loan if you want to be able to judge exactly how much is there and how quickly you're clearing it. On a $40k renovation split, the difference between paying it off in five years and letting it ride for 30 is real money, and the split is what keeps it visible.
When one loan is the right answer
For a lot of people, if everything is owner-occupied purpose, it all sits in one. One rate, one repayment, one offset account doing the work. There's nothing to gain from splitting a loan that was only ever for the house you live in, and it's less to keep track of.
The time to revisit it is when the purpose changes: you pull equity for something new, or you move out and the place becomes a rental. That's when a split earns its keep, and it's a normal part of the refinance conversation.
The honest bit: splits are a filing system, not a saving
Splitting a loan doesn't change what you owe or the rate you pay on it. It changes what you can see. For some people that visibility is exactly what gets the car money gone in three years. For others it's just more accounts to look at.
If the reason you're asking is that one giant balance feels overwhelming, that's a fair reason to split. If the reason is that someone told you it saves interest, it doesn't on its own. Paying more does.
Want your loans set up so the tax side is clean?
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