Smarter home loan decisions, start with the numbers.

Nothing, in almost every case. Brokers are paid a commission by the lender that funds your loan, and that commission is disclosed to you in writing before you apply. The rate you're offered is not increased to pay for it — lenders price broker-originated loans the same as their direct channel.

20% of the purchase price avoids Lenders Mortgage Insurance entirely. You can buy with 5% through the First Home Guarantee if you qualify, or from 5–10% with LMI otherwise. Remember the deposit isn't the whole cash requirement — stamp duty, legals and inspections sit on top.

As a very rough guide, lenders land somewhere between four and six times gross household income, but that range is wide because the real driver is surplus income after an assessed rate buffer of about 3% above the actual rate, your living expenses (floored at a benchmark), and every debt and credit limit you hold.

When the annual saving comfortably exceeds the switching costs, and you'll hold the loan long enough to bank it. Discharge, registration and any new lender fees usually total $500–$1,500; a 0.50% saving on a $600,000 loan is around $3,000 a year, so the payback is typically a few months.

There's no published minimum. Major banks are generally comfortable above roughly 650 and cautious below 550, but the score is only a filter — the underlying conduct on your file matters more. Non-bank and specialist lenders assess conduct without a score cut-off at all.

Conditional (pre-)approval typically takes 1–5 business days. Formal approval after you've found a property usually lands in 5–15 business days, depending on the lender's assessment queue and how quickly the valuation comes back. A complete application at submission is the single biggest driver of speed.