Home Loans

Tell us a bit about yourself, your needs and home loan preferences. We’ll ask about your income, expenses, credit history, employment history and any current loans. 

You’ll need to provide supporting documentation that helps the lender assess your profile. These include identification, recent payslips, bank statements and any loan statements you might have for existing loans.

Once we have an accurate view of your financial situation, our smart technology will compare thousands of different home loan options to find a shortlist of the loans that best matches your specific needs.

Our Home Loan Specialists will do the leg works for you. They liaise with the lender, create a credit proposal for your consideration. They are available to answer your questions about the product recommended.

Once you have chosen the most suitable loan for you, we’ll then prepare to submit your application to the lender.

We will ask you to provide any final documents and to sign the lender’s privacy form.

While we wait for these documents, we prepare your application and upload it into the lender’s system or application portal.

We highlight the strengths of your application and present it so it suits the way that the particular lender will assess the loan.

Once we have everything we need, we click submit on the lender’s system and email your supporting documents to the lender.

Home loan pre-approval, also know as conditional approval or in-principle approval, is not a full approval.

At this stage, you have met most of the bank’s lending policies subject to a few conditions.

Typically, it means that you are yet to find a property which means your home loan is approved subject to a property valuation.

As long as the property meets the lender’s guidelines, they are likely to approve your home loan application. 

The good news is that a pre-approval lasts about 3 months, which is usually enough time to find a suitable property.

Usually, you can extend your pre-approval if needed by providing a new set of payslips.

We often receive enquiries from customers who sign the Contract of Sale and pay their deposit before getting pre-approved.

This can be risky! If you can’t get formal approval, you risk losing your deposit.

Once you have chosen your desired property, a valuer will make an appointment to inspect the property.

The bank does not employ property valuers – they are separate companies which means their valuations are independent.

It also means the timelines for completing a valuation can vary.

In some cases, tenants can delay the valuer from gaining access to the property.

For very low risk applications, a valuer may not be required.

We can order upfront valuation with many of our lenders, which enables the bank to skip the first two steps and go straight to formal approval.

Unconditional approval, also known as formal approval, is when the lender has everything they need and can confirm that they are willing to approve your loan.

They will issue a letter confirming their approval so, at this stage, you can relax.

There may sometimes be some back and forth with the bank asking for additional documents before they can finalise approval.

This is normal for complex applications or where you haven’t provided everything that the lender needs upfront.

If you’re borrowing over 80% of the property value, you may need Lender Mortgage Insurance (LMI) approval as well.

In some cases, this will mean that your application will take longer to reach unconditional approval.

Once the loan has been formally approved, the lender will send you a loan contract for you to sign to accept their offer.

You can go through this contract with your solicitor if you’d like to receive independent legal advice.

Once you’ve signed the contract, return it to the lender with any requirements that they need to settle the loan.

Do this as soon as possible to avoid delays at settlement!

Once the lender has certified that all of your documents are in order, they can then advance the loan funds.

For a purchase, they will call your solicitor or conveyancer and let them know that the funds are available.

Your conveyancer will book in a settlement time and date with the lender.

For a home loan refinance, your new lender will arrange with your current lender to repay their loan and take possession of your mortgage title.

They will book in a time to meet and sort this out automatically.

Settlement has occurred when the loan is advanced and your bank or broker will notify you as soon as the lender informs us.