How much can I borrow for a house in Brisbane?

Borrowing power is not a formula the banks share. It's the output of a serviceability assessment: the lender takes your income, applies its own haircuts to the parts it considers less reliable, subtracts an assessed figure for living expenses, subtracts every debt and commitment you have, and then asks whether what's left covers the repayment on the loan you want — calculated at a rate well above the one you'd actually pay.

The 3% buffer is why your own maths looks wrong

Since 2021 APRA has required lenders to assess new home loans at your product rate plus a buffer of at least 3 percentage points, with a floor rate on top of that. So if you're quoted a rate and you work out the repayment on a calculator, the lender is testing you against a repayment noticeably higher than that. This single rule is the biggest reason people are surprised by their approval amount, and it's also why paying down debt moves the number so much.

Living expenses: your number or their benchmark, whichever is higher

You'll declare your household spending, but the lender compares it to the Household Expenditure Measure (HEM) — a statistical minimum based on your income, postcode, number of adults and number of dependants. If you declare less than the benchmark, the benchmark is used. Understating your expenses therefore achieves nothing except raising questions, while genuinely reducing fixed commitments before you apply does help.

Debts hurt more than people expect

A credit card is assessed on its limit, not its balance, at a monthly rate of a few per cent of that limit — so a card you never use still costs you borrowing capacity. Car and personal loan repayments come off in full. Buy-now-pay-later accounts, HECS/HELP repayments, and ongoing commitments like child support all reduce the figure. Closing an unused card or clearing a small personal loan is often worth far more than another few months of saving.

Income isn't taken at face value

Base salary is assessed in full. Overtime, bonuses, commissions, allowances and rental income are shaded — typically to somewhere between 50% and 90% — and each lender shades them differently. For self-employed applicants the assessed figure comes from tax returns with permitted add-backs. This is exactly where lender choice earns its keep: a nurse with substantial shift penalties, a salesperson on commission, or a couple with an investment property can be assessed materially differently at two lenders on the same day.

What Brisbane specifically adds

The city's spread of property types changes the deposit side of the equation more than the income side. Lenders cap the loan-to-value ratio harder on small inner-city units, apply postcode-level restrictions in some categories, and treat acreage in the outer east — Sheldon, Burbank, Chandler — as a different risk again. You can be approved for the loan and still be told no on the property, which is why a pre-approval and a valuation view need to be sorted before you're emotionally committed to a place.

How to get a figure you can actually rely on

Run our borrowing power calculator for a realistic starting point — it uses the same buffer and expense benchmark logic described above and shows its working. Then have the number checked against real lender policy, because the calculator can't know that lender A accepts your bonus at 100% while lender B takes half of it. That difference is usually the difference between the house you wanted and the one you settled for.

The information on this website is general in nature and does not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on any information you should consider whether it is appropriate for you. Terms, conditions, fees, charges and normal lending criteria apply. Rates are subject to change.