Plan your income and expenses to find your surplus.
When you apply for a loan, the lender builds a picture of your living expenses — either from your declared figures or from a benchmark, whichever is higher. Going through your own spending before you apply means the figures you provide are accurate and defensible, and it removes the common problem of a declared budget that does not match what the bank statements show.
The categories most often understated are groceries, transport including fuel and tolls, subscriptions, insurance premiums paid annually, and irregular costs such as car servicing and school expenses. Annual costs in particular get left out because they do not appear in a typical month. Divide them by twelve and include them.
What matters is the surplus after everything, because that is what a new repayment has to come from — with something left over. If the surplus only just covers the repayment, the loan is affordable today and fragile to any change. Test it against a higher repayment before committing.
A calculator gives you a starting figure. What a lender will actually approve depends on your income, expenses, credit history and the property, and it varies between lenders. We compare more than 40 lenders on our panel and will tell you where you genuinely stand — see our home loan, refinancing and car loan services, or the suburb pages for Werribee, Tarneit and Point Cook.
Generally the higher of your declared expenses and their own benchmark. Accurate declarations avoid surprises during assessment.
Commonly a few months of transaction history, though this varies by lender and product.
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