First home buyer WA

Twenty per cent avoids lenders mortgage insurance, and plenty of first home buyer loans are written with less. Lower deposit options exist through lenders mortgage insurance, guarantor arrangements and government schemes. What you qualify for depends on your income, your credit history and the lender's policy, and is always subject to lender approval.

Pre-approval is a lender's conditional agreement to lend you a set amount based on the documents you have supplied, before you have found a property. Formal approval comes after you have an accepted offer and the lender has valued that specific property. Pre-approval is not a guarantee of finance.

Western Australia has a first home owner rate of transfer duty for eligible buyers, which is separate from the First Home Owner Grant and has its own rules. Thresholds and eligibility settings are changed by government from time to time. We check the published position when we run your numbers rather than quoting figures at you.

Yes. A parental guarantee lets your family offer equity in their own property as additional security, so you can borrow with a smaller cash deposit. The guarantor takes on a real obligation and should get independent legal advice before signing. Not every lender offers the same guarantee structure.

The loan is the same product an upgrader gets, so the pricing follows the loan type, your deposit size and the lender rather than the fact that it is your first purchase. A smaller deposit narrows the field of lenders, which is what most often moves the pricing. We compare the panel rather than quoting a rate here.

Identification and confirmation of your residency status, payslips or two years of returns if you are self-employed, your living expenses with statements for the accounts you actually use, every existing debt including cards, car loans and buy-now-pay-later, and your deposit with evidence of where it came from.

It is taken into account, because the compulsory repayment reduces the income a lender counts as available to service a loan. How much difference it makes depends on the size of the balance and the lender's policy. It rarely stops a first home buyer on its own, and we work the effect into the borrowing figure up front.

Established means you buy a finished house and settle once. Building means a construction loan drawn down in stages while you keep paying rent, and the First Home Owner Grant in Western Australia applies to new homes rather than established ones. We run both cases on your actual figures before you choose.