First Home Buyer Loans in Westmeadows

There are three separate things and they are often confused. The First Home Guarantee is a federal scheme administered through Housing Australia that lets eligible buyers purchase with as little as a 5 per cent deposit without paying lenders mortgage insurance, subject to place availability, income tests and property price caps. The First Home Owner Grant is a Victorian payment available for new homes only, not established ones. Separately, the Victorian first home buyer duty exemption removes transfer duty on eligible purchases up to $600,000, with a concession that tapers away up to $750,000. Thresholds, caps and eligibility rules are set by government and change from time to time, so we confirm the current position with the State Revenue Office and Housing Australia for your purchase rather than relying on last year's figures.

Most lenders want to see that at least 5 per cent of the purchase price has been genuinely saved, which usually means accumulated in your own account over at least three months, and some will also accept consistent rent payments as an equivalent. A gifted deposit from a parent is very common in Melbourne's north and it is not a problem in itself, but the lender will normally want a signed gift letter confirming it is a gift rather than a loan, and some lenders will require it to have been held in your account for a period before settlement. Where the whole deposit is a gift and there are no genuine savings, the field of lenders narrows but does not disappear. Tell us how the deposit came together at the start, because it changes which lenders we approach.

It depends which route you take, and the honest answer is a range. With a 20 per cent deposit you avoid lenders mortgage insurance entirely and get the widest choice of lenders and pricing. With 5 per cent through the First Home Guarantee you avoid lenders mortgage insurance as well, but places are limited and price caps apply. Outside those schemes, most lenders will lend up to 95 per cent of the value including capitalised lenders mortgage insurance, meaning a 5 per cent deposit plus costs, but the insurance premium then sits on top of your loan. Beyond the deposit itself you need funds for transfer duty where it applies, conveyancing, building and pest inspection, and moving costs. We model the options side by side so you can see what each one costs you over the life of the loan.

Allow two to four weeks from your first conversation to a pre-approval in hand, assuming your documents are ready. Getting the documents right is what determines the timeline more than anything else, and expired payslips or bank statements are the single most common cause of a file stalling. A pre-approval typically lasts three months and can usually be extended with updated payslips. After that, the clock is set by your contract: formal approval commonly takes one to two weeks once a property is chosen, and settlement is normally 30 to 90 days. Start early, because pre-approval in place before you bid is what allows you to compete at a Saturday auction rather than watch one.

No. On a standard residential first home loan the lender pays our commission at settlement and there is no charge to you. That includes the work involved in scheme applications, which can be substantial. Preparing a First Home Guarantee application, lodging the duty exemption paperwork correctly through your conveyancer, and coordinating a First Home Owner Grant application on a new build all take time, and none of it attracts an extra fee from us. If your situation ever moves into territory where a fee would apply, which is very unusual for a first home purchase, you would be told the amount in writing before any work started.

This is extremely common and it is fixable, but it needs handling before you bid rather than after. Pre-approvals generally run for three months and can be refreshed with updated payslips and bank statements, and in most cases the lender simply re-runs the assessment. What complicates it is a change in your circumstances during that window, such as a new car loan, a new credit card, a change of employer, or a shift from permanent to casual work. Any of those can reduce your borrowing capacity, sometimes significantly. Tell us before you take on any new debt while you are house hunting, because an approved buyer can become an unapproved one over a single finance contract.