Mortgage Broker Canberra
We compare Canberra lenders for you, work out what you can actually borrow, and get the application through to settlement. The first conversation costs you nothing and puts no mark on your credit file. We are paid by the lender that writes the loan, not by you.
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Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm · Canberra, ACT 2601 · ABN 35 361 229 668
What We Do On Your Canberra Loan
Mortgage Broker Canberra covers the ACT and the border towns around it. We compare lenders for you, work out what you can realistically borrow, prepare the application and manage it through to settlement. There is no fee to you for any of that. We are paid by the lender that ultimately writes the loan, and what we are paid is disclosed to you in writing before you commit to anything.
The work that decides the outcome happens before anything is lodged. A declined application stays on your credit file whether it was ever going to fit the lender or not, and here most of them fail on policy rather than on income. So we check the fit against several lenders first and only lodge where it stands up. That check is most of what you are getting.
Three Things We Check Before Anything Is Lodged
Applications here fail for reasons that rarely come up elsewhere. These are the three we look at first on a Canberra file.
- How many years are left on your Crown lease
- Your ACT block is leasehold, not freehold. It is a 99-year Crown lease under Torrens title at a nominal dollar a year, and it behaves like freehold in every way that affects you day to day. What it changes is that a lender counts the years remaining, and the first residential leases began falling due in 2023. We pull the lease term at the start, because on an older block it can decide the lender rather than the rate.
- How your employment reads to a lender
- Commonwealth government administration and Defence dominate the job market here, and an ongoing APS role reads as the most straightforward income a lender assesses. On the identical salary, a non-ongoing, contract or labour-hire engagement is run through a different set of rules and produces a different borrowing figure. We work out which lenders read your engagement most favourably before you make an offer, because the spread between them is wide.
- Whether your timing is worth money on duty
- From 1 July 2026 the ACT Home Buyer Concession Scheme drops both its income threshold and its property price cap, so eligible first home buyers pay no conveyance duty at all whatever they earn and whatever the property costs. If income or price has shut you out until now, when you sign is worth real money. We tell you which side of that date your purchase falls on and what it costs you either way.
Loans We Arrange
Eleven areas, each with a page written for the Canberra rules rather than a national template. Start with whichever describes your situation and we will work from there.
Home Loans
Comparing lenders, checking your borrowing power, and getting the application through to settlement.
Read more → 02First Home Buyer
Scheme eligibility checked, the paperwork prepared, and a low-deposit loan structured around it.
Read more → 03Refinancing
A review of the loan you have, against what the rest of the market would offer you now.
Read more → 04Investment Loans
Structuring finance for a rental purchase, with the holding costs modelled before you buy.
Read more → 05Defence Home Loans
Using the DHOAS subsidy properly, and choosing between the three lenders approved to deliver it.
Read more → 06Public Servant Home Loans
Matching your APS income to the lenders that read it well, whether you are ongoing, non-ongoing, on contract or labour-hire.
Read more → 07Construction Loans
Progress-draw finance for a build, a house and land package, or a knockdown rebuild.
Read more → 08Unit & Apartment Loans
Finding a lender that will approve the specific unit, where size, building and density all count.
Read more → 09SMSF Loans
Limited recourse borrowing for a fund buying property, arranged with the structure lenders require.
Read more → 10Commercial Loans
Finance for premises, business lending and asset finance, assessed on your figures.
Read more → 11Guarantor Home Loans
A family guarantee structured to skip LMI, with a clear path to releasing the guarantor.
Read more →What Happens After You Call Us
The sequence is the same whether you are buying your first unit or refinancing an investment portfolio. Timings assume the documents reach us when we ask for them.
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First conversation
Twenty minutes, by phone or in person. What you earn, what you owe, what you are trying to buy, and when. Nothing is lodged and nothing touches your credit file at this stage.
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Documents and borrowing capacity
Payslips, bank statements, and a list of current debts and card limits. We run your numbers through several lenders’ calculators, because the same income produces materially different answers depending on whose policy it goes through.
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Lender shortlist
A short list, with the reasoning for each. This is where policy detail decides things. One lender will accept your contract history, another will not.
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Pre-approval
Lodged with one lender. Usually a few business days, longer when the lender is busy or the income is complex. You then know your ceiling before you bid or make an offer.
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Property, valuation and formal approval
Once you have a contract, the lender values the property and issues formal approval. The lender checks your Crown lease term here, along with the property type.
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Loan documents and settlement
You sign, your conveyancer coordinates with the lender, and settlement happens. Note that ACT conveyance duty is not paid at settlement. It falls due after the title is registered.
Have your last two payslips, three months of transaction statements and the limits on every credit card ready for the second step. It is the single thing that moves an application fastest.
Canberra Suburbs And Border Towns Covered
We work across the whole of Canberra and the NSW towns that function as part of the same market. Which side of the border you buy on changes the running cost: the ACT charges land tax on a rented dwelling from the first dollar, while NSW does not start until a general threshold is passed. If you are weighing a Queanbeyan purchase against an ACT one, we put both holding costs in front of you before you choose, because that gap is annual rather than one-off.
Whether you are looking at the established town centres, the growth suburbs on the western and northern edges, or across the border in NSW, you are in the same lending market with different rules attached, and we apply the right set to your file.
Mortgage Broker Questions
What does a broker cost?
Nothing to you in the ordinary case. The lender that writes the loan pays us an upfront commission and an ongoing trail commission. Those payments are disclosed to you in writing before you proceed, and we are bound by the Best Interests Duty, which requires your interests to be put ahead of our own where the two conflict.
Does leasehold title make it harder to get a loan?
No. Lenders across Australia write loans on Canberra property routinely and treat the Crown lease as ordinary security. What they check is the number of years remaining. Where the term is short, the lender will generally want the lessee to apply for a further Crown lease before settlement or refinance.
Can I use a broker if I already have a bank in mind?
Yes. We will still compare that lender against others and tell you where it sits. If your own bank is genuinely the better fit, that is the recommendation you get.
Do you help buyers over the border in Queanbeyan or Googong?
Yes. Queanbeyan, Jerrabomberra, Googong and Bungendore are NSW, so a different duty regime and a different land tax regime apply. The lending itself works the same way.
How long does the whole process take?
Pre-approval is usually a few business days once we have your documents. From a signed contract to settlement is commonly four to six weeks, though that is set by the contract rather than by the lender.
What do you need from me to get started?
For the first conversation, nothing at all. Twenty minutes and a rough idea of what you earn, what you owe and what you are trying to buy. To put a borrowing figure behind that we need your last two payslips, three months of transaction statements and the limit on every credit card. Those are the three things a lender assesses, so having them to hand is what turns a rough answer into a real one.
Does talking to you affect my credit file?
No. We lodge nothing and make no credit enquiry until you tell us to proceed with a specific lender, so a conversation about what you can borrow leaves no mark at all. The enquiry that does show up is the application itself, which is why we check the fit against policy before one is lodged.
Find Out What You Can Borrow
Call us and we will tell you in that first conversation whether your Canberra plan works, roughly what a lender will support, and what stands in the way. From your payslips and statements we work out a borrowing range assessed at the buffer, a shortlist of the lenders that fit, and the reasons for both, at no cost and with nothing lodged.