What is the average rate discount from comparing home loan offers in South Africa?
ooba Home Loans — South Africa's largest bond originator — reports an average rate concession of approximately 0.67% below prime across the home-loan applications it submits to multiple banks. This is ooba's own reported figure, not a bond.co.za calculation: it is evidence that comparing several bank offers for the same application, rather than accepting the first one, materially moves the rate a buyer ends up with. At today's prime rate of 10.75% (SARB, effective 2026-09-25), that average concession works out to a rate of roughly 10.08%.
How much does a 0.67% rate concession save on a real bond?
Here is bond.co.za's own calculation, computed from the standard South African annuity formula, showing what ooba's reported average concession is worth in rand terms on three common bond sizes over a 20-year term, at today's 10.75% prime rate:
| Bond size | Monthly at 10.75% | Monthly at 10.08% | Saved per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| R 900 000 | R 9 137 | R 8 733 | R 404 |
| R 1 500 000 | R 15 228 | R 14 555 | R 674 |
| R 2 500 000 | R 25 381 | R 24 258 | R 1 123 |
On a R 1 500 000 bond, ooba's average 0.67 percentage point concession is worth R 674 a month — R 161 643 over the full 20-year term — simply from which offer a buyer accepts, before any bank has changed anything about the buyer's deposit or credit profile. This is an average outcome across many applications, not a number any single buyer is promised. To run this against your own bond size, use the bond repayment calculator.
Why does the rate banks offer vary so much between lenders?
South African banks each price home-loan risk independently. Across the major-bank panels that originators submit to, offers typically land between 1.0 percentage points below prime at the favourable end and 2.0 percentage points above prime at the unfavourable end, depending on credit profile, deposit size and loan-to-value (bond.co.za bank-panel illustration, cross-checked with ooba Home Loans rate-concession reporting, last updated 3 October 2026). That is a wide band — illustrative, not a quote — which is exactly why a single bank's first offer rarely reflects the best price available for the same application elsewhere.
Does comparing home loan rates mean more hard credit checks?
Not necessarily. A soft affordability check — one that does not require a hard credit pull — is usually enough for a first round of comparison across several banks. A hard credit check typically only happens once a buyer chooses to proceed with a specific bank's offer. Multiple home-loan enquiries made within a short shopping window are generally treated by the credit bureaus as one search for one loan, not as several separate applications, though this depends on how the comparison is run.
Is it worth comparing if your own bank's offer already seems fair?
Often, yes. An offer that looks fair from one bank is only a judgement against that single bank's own risk pricing — it says nothing about what a competing bank would quote for the identical application. Comparing costs the buyer nothing to check, and ooba's reported average concession of 0.67% below prime is evidence that, across many buyers, the exercise is worth doing. It matters least for a buyer with a simple, clean application who already trusts a relationship-based offer and has no interest in comparing further — going direct remains a valid choice in that case.
(Last updated 7 October 2026. Prime rate figure verified against the SARB September 2026 MPC statement. The 0.67% average concession is ooba Home Loans' own reported figure, not a bond.co.za number or a quote — individual results vary by credit profile, deposit and the specific banks that compete for an application.)