Estimate the full upfront cost of buying a property.
The deposit is the visible cost; the upfront costs around it routinely surprise buyers. Stamp duty is usually the largest, followed by conveyancing or legal fees, building and pest inspections, loan application or valuation fees, title transfer and registration fees, Lenders Mortgage Insurance if your deposit is under 20 per cent, and moving costs. Budgeting the deposit alone is the most common reason a purchase becomes tight at settlement.
Stamp duty is set by the state and moves in bands, so a small difference in purchase price can cross a threshold and change the duty materially. First home buyer concessions and exemptions can remove or reduce it entirely, and eligibility depends on price, property type and whether you will live there. Confirm the current thresholds with the state revenue office before relying on any figure.
Once you have a total, work backwards. If your savings have to cover both the deposit and the upfront costs, the property price you can genuinely target is lower than a deposit-only calculation suggests. Running this alongside the borrowing power calculator gives you the realistic ceiling rather than the theoretical one.
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.
It varies with the state, the price and whether concessions apply. Work it out on your actual purchase price rather than a rule of thumb, because stamp duty moves in bands.
Concessions and exemptions exist and depend on price caps and eligibility, which change. Check the current position with your state revenue office.
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