Melbourne’s Best Mortgage Broker – Available 7 Days a Week
Getting a home loan goes much smoother when you know what’s coming. This checklist walks you through each stage, from sorting your paperwork to picking up your keys. Being prepared upfront saves time, reduces stress, and gives lenders the confidence to say yes.
Our team works with first home buyers, investors, refinancers, and self-employed borrowers every day, helping them prepare applications that lenders can assess quickly and confidently.
Lenders assess your identity, income, expenses, and savings before approving anything. Having documents ready from the start avoids delays.
Requirements vary depending on how you earn.
Salaried employees, most lenders will ask for:
Self-employed borrowers, most lenders will ask for:
Lenders assess self-employed income differently. Our self-employed home loan specialists know exactly what each lender needs.
Lenders use this to confirm you can manage repayments on top of existing commitments.
3 to 6 months of bank statements showing genuine savings. This tells lenders you manage money consistently, not just that you have a lump sum right now.
Knowing your numbers before you start searching puts you in control. Your borrowing power depends on your income, expenses, existing debts, and the lender’s serviceability buffer.
Use our mortgage broker calculators to get a starting point.
Unsure what your borrowing power looks like? Speak with our team before you start house hunting.
Pre-approval tells you exactly how much a lender will lend you, before you make an offer. With pre-approval in place, you can bid at auction and negotiate from a position of strength. Sellers take pre-approved buyers seriously.
Pre-approval typically lasts 90 days. We’ll help you refresh it if your search takes longer.
Need help getting pre-approved? Book a free consultation today.
Once you understand your borrowing capacity and have pre-approval in place, the next step is choosing a structure that suits your goals.
Fixed or variable? Fixed gives repayment certainty. Variable gives flexibility to make extra repayments.
Offset account or redraw facility? An offset reduces the interest you pay daily. A redraw lets you access extra repayments you’ve made.
Split loan? Fix part, keep part variable. A practical middle ground for many borrowers.
We compare over 50 lenders to find the structure that fits your situation, not just the lowest headline rate.
With your loan structure confirmed, it’s time to move on the property. Share the Contract of Sale with us as soon as possible so we can submit your formal application without delay.
We work alongside your solicitor or conveyancer to keep everything on track.
Settlement is when ownership officially transfers and your lender releases the funds. It usually happens 30 to 90 days after exchange.
We coordinate with your solicitor and lender in the lead-up so nothing falls through. Your job is to collect the keys.
And that’s not where it ends. Your situation will change over time. We’ll check in to make sure your loan still works for you.
Lenders move faster when everything is in order. A complete application avoids back-and-forth, reduces delays, and gets you to a decision sooner.
The borrowers who have the smoothest experience are almost always the ones who did the groundwork first.
Taking a fixed rate? Ask about locking it in at application. Rates can move between approval and settlement.
Tell us about any changes to your income or employment during the process. Changes between pre-approval and settlement can affect your final outcome.
What If We Finance compares over 50 lenders and 2,000 home loan products. Our service is completely free, available 7 days a week, 8:30 am to 9:30 pm.
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