Homes
Homes
Buy a home at any stage.
Your deposit, every route that skips mortgage insurance and the file a lender asks for, based on your own pay and documents.
- Every stage, student to practice owner
- Read against your own documents
- A broker or adviser only if you ask
Buying a home
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General information from published policies. Deposits exclude transfer duty and legal costs.
What to know
What we do
- Show the deposit, the equity and every route that skips mortgage insurance, at any stage
- Build the file a lender asks for, from a first home to an investment property
- Introduce a licensed broker or adviser if you ask, and tell you first if we are paid for it
What we don’t
- Tell you what to borrow, which loan to take or how to invest
- Rank lenders, advisers or transfer services by what they pay us
Buying with others
Buying with friends, or with a family guarantee.
When one income is not enough for a deposit, some buy with friends, each on the title, or with a parent guaranteeing part of the loan.
Co-owning with friends
Nurses, allied health and junior doctors sharing a place
Three or four friends can buy together, each on the title and each assessed by the lender. A co-ownership agreement sets who owns what, who pays what and how anyone leaves. We hold it with your other documents and remind you of its dates.
- Lenders limit how many borrowers go on one loan, and each adds a deposit and a check.
- On a temporary visa, each person needs foreign investment approval, and only a new build is open.
- You need the agreement most when someone wants out.
Source: Foreign Investment Review Board; lender policies.
A family guarantee
First buyers at any stage, junior doctors included
A parent can guarantee part of your loan with the equity in their own home. It can stand in for the deposit and the mortgage insurance, and it is usually released once your loan falls to about 80% of the value.
- The guarantee is limited to an agreed amount, not the whole loan.
- Lenders usually ask your parent to take their own legal advice.
- We keep the figures, so you know when it can be released.
Source: lender policies.
Your loan
Your loan’s dates, and what changing it costs.
A home loan runs for decades, but its rate and terms change sooner. A fixed rate ends on a date in your contract. Your contract also sets the rate after it.
The loan you already have
Read from your loan documents
- Balance
- $520,000
- Rate
- 5.89%, fixed
- Fixed rate ends
- 14 March 2027
- Then
- The variable rate your contract sets
- Offset account
- $38,400
- Mortgage insurance
- None: healthcare waiver applied
Your fixed rate ends on 14 March 2027. We remind you three months before, when the Australian Banking Association suggests talking to your lender. What you do then is up to you.
Example figures. Source: Australian Banking Association.
Ask your lender, or switch
When a rate or a fixed term ends
Moneysmart suggests telling your lender you plan to switch. It may cut your rate to keep you.
- A letter to your own lender asking it to review your rate, prepared from your loan documents. You send it.
- A statement of your balance and what you have paid, requested on your approval. Lenders must provide one on request.
- Switching can cost a discharge fee, an application fee, a break fee on a fixed loan and, under 20% equity, new mortgage insurance. Part of the mortgage insurance on your current loan may be refundable.
- We introduce a licensed broker only if you ask, and tell you first if we are paid.
Source: Moneysmart, July 2026; National Credit Code, section 36.
What to know
What we do
- Track when your fixed rate ends, and prepare a rate review letter to your own lender
What we don’t
- Compare your rate with other lenders’ rates. A licensed broker does that
Your next property
Use your equity to buy your next home or an investment.
Equity is your home’s value minus what you owe on it. Lenders let you borrow against it to fund the deposit on your next home or an investment.
What your equity covers
Registrars, specialists, senior nurses and consultants
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How much of it a lender lets you borrow against, and the deposit it asks for, are each lender’s own policy. Source: lender policies.
What changes for an investment loan
A second home you let out
- Investment loans cost more: in July 2026 the average investor rate on outstanding loans was 6.44%, against 6.21% for owner-occupiers.
- Some lenders apply their healthcare waiver to investment loans as well.
- A home you let out needs landlord insurance; see Insurance.
Source: Reserve Bank of Australia, lenders’ interest rates, July 2026; lender policies.
Property back home
Manage your UK or Irish home from Australia.
Many people who move here keep and let their home in the UK or Ireland. That means running a mortgage from overseas and paying tax in two countries.
Your mortgage there
A home in the UK or Ireland you have let
- Home
- A flat in Manchester, let
- Mortgage deal ends
- 31 January 2027
- Early repayment charge
- Ends with the deal
- Consent to let
- Granted to 30 June 2027
- Rent
- Paid without UK tax taken off: NRL1 approved
- In Australia
- Temporary resident: the rent is not taxed here
- Letting needs your lender’s consent. Some give it on your current deal; others need you to move to a buy-to-let mortgage. Letting without it can breach the mortgage.
- When a deal ends with nothing new arranged, the loan moves to the lender’s reversion rate. An early repayment charge usually falls toward the end of a deal.
- In Ireland, lending on a home you do not live in is capped at 70% of its value.
- We introduce an FCA-authorised UK broker only if you ask, and tell you first if we are paid.
Example figures. Source: Bank of England (PRA); MoneyHelper; FCA; Central Bank of Ireland.
Tax on it, in both countries
UK, Irish and Australian rules
- UK: tax is taken off your rent unless HMRC approves form NRL1; with approval, the rent goes on your Self Assessment return. A sale is reported, and any tax paid, within 60 days of completion.
- Ireland: your tenant or a collection agent deducts 20% for Revenue, or a registered agent pays the tax itself. Each tenancy is registered with the Residential Tenancies Board every year.
- Australia, on a temporary visa: rent and gains from a home overseas are not taxed here.
- Australia, from permanent residence: the rent is declared in Australian dollars, with an offset for tax paid abroad. The home counts as bought at its market value on the day you become a permanent resident, so a valuation from then matters. We track that date.
Source: HMRC; Revenue; Residential Tenancies Board; ATO, Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, sections 768-910 and 768-955.
From overseas
On a temporary visa, buying a home.
Buying on a temporary visa has its own rules: which homes you can buy, the deposit a lender asks for and the stamp duty you pay.
What to know