By the time you’re ready to buy your next home, your financial situation is likely to be very different to when you were a first home buyer. You may have a larger family, bigger car, higher income or other investments that will help determine how much you can afford to spend on a new home.
You’re also likely to have built equity in your current home, either due to extra mortgage repayments you’ve made or an increase in the value of your property. This can put you a few steps ahead of first home buyers, so the factors that determine how much you’ll be able to borrow are slightly different.
Income
This is the most important factor in determining how much you can borrow on your home loan. As a guide, it’s best if your repayments don’t exceed 30% of your after-tax salary. Use our calculators to get a good idea of what your repayments will be once you start making mortgage repayments on your new loan.
If you’re self-employed, you may not have a regular income or payslips. So should you decide to apply for a home loan with CommBank, we’ll look at how your business is performing financially to determine how much we can lend you. A Home Lending Specialist can help you with the application process and answer any questions you may have.
Savings or equity
You can either use the equity in your current home as a deposit for your new home, or save a cash deposit like you did the first time around. How much deposit you’ve saved or the equity you have in your home is an important factor in deciding how much you can borrow on a home loan.
Lenders’ Mortgage Insurance or a Low Deposit Premium may apply, depending on the circumstances of your loan. These are both one-off, non-refundable costs that are added to the loan amount.
Repayment history
Your history of mortgage repayments and other debts are also taken into consideration when you apply for a home loan. Consider consolidating and paying off other debts so you can focus on making additional repayments on your mortgage, which may in turn increase the equity in your current home.
