Major lenders will sharpen their pencils with “cheap” fixed-rate home loans ahead of a wave of homebuyers having to refinance as their ultra-cheap fixed-rate mortgages secured during the pandemic end.

The first wave of fixed-rate borrowers, who typically locked in two-year home loans in 2020 when the Reserve Bank of Australia’s cash rate was a record low 0.1 per cent, have already starting to come off.