Home loans

When buying, the answer depends mainly on how much you want to borrow.  

Your deposit is the amount you’re able to put towards the property upfront, and the rest is normally borrowed in the form of a mortgage. You typically need at least a 20% deposit to buy a home. This is 20% of the property’s value based on the bank's valuation, which is also known as a loan-to-value ratio (LVR) under 80%. Let’s say we value the property at $600k, you’ll need $120k or more for your deposit. 

What if you don’t quite have 20%?  

If you have between 5% and 20% of the purchase price – in other words an LVR over 80% – you have a few options: 

• Check if you’re eligible for any government first home buyer grants.
• Pay Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI). This can be included either in your upfront costs or loan repayments, so it’s spread out over the life of the loan (though note any fees added to your loan balance will attract interest charges). You can estimate LMI with our upfront costs calculator.
• Consider our Family Security Guarantee², allowing a family member to save you from paying LMI.
• Keep saving more deposit: our home saver calculator helps estimate how long this will take. 

Variable interest rate

With a variable rate home loan, your variable rate changes in line with market interest rates. Choose from our basic loan and standard home loan with offset - and get ahead on your home loan with no cap on extra repayments and no associated break costs.  

Fixed interest rate

With fixed rate home loans, your fixed rate won’t be affected by interest rate rises during your 1-5 fixed rate period – so you'll know exactly what your interest rate and repayments will be throughout your fixed rate loan term.  

Split your home loan account

Or you can get the best of both worlds by splitting your balance into separate variable and fixed rate loan amounts.  

The amount you can borrow with a home loan depends on a range of things. When your bank considers your ability to pay back your loan, they look at many personal and financial details, which may include your:

• Income
• Expenses
• Liabilities, including other debts and
• Existing assets, such as investment properties.

Lenders consider these things to make sure you can make repayments on the loan without placing yourself under financial stress.

You can estimate how much you may be able to borrow with Westpac using our borrowing power calculator. 

We calculate your interest in two steps.

First, we multiply the balance on your loan by your interest rate and divide by 365 days in a year. This shows your daily interest charges.  

We then add together your daily interest charges for every day in each month, which produces the monthly interest charge shown on your statement.  

Finally, we divide this up according to your preferred repayment frequency, whether that’s weekly, fortnightly or monthly. This figure is your repayment amount.

If your loan balance was $500,000 with an interest rate of 4.93% p.a. and monthly repayments, the calculation might look like this: 

500,000 x 0.0493 / 365 = $67.53 interest per day 

$67.53 x 30 days in September = $2,026 interest for September

You can use our Mortgage Repayment Calculator to estimate repayments and interest charges over the life of a loan. You can also use the calculator to check the effect that extra repayments could have on your home loan. 

Planning to use an offset account? Calculate how much interest you could save.

You can apply online for a new home loan, conditional approval or switch from another bank – it should only take around 20 minutes to apply. You can also request a call back from a lender or apply in branch.

Read more on how to apply.

Many things affect how fast you can pay down your home loan balance, and how much interest you pay.

Extra repayments. The simplest way to pay off your loan sooner is to make additional repayments on top of the repayments you’re obliged to make. Bear in mind, if you have a fixed rate with us, you can only make up to $30,000 in additional repayments during the fixed rate period, before break costs apply.

Repayment type. Choose between principal and interest repayments (P&I), or interest-only repayments (IO). With principal and interest, you pay off both parts of your home loan (the principal loan amount, plus interest). With interest-only, you only repay the interest charges: your home loan takes longer to pay down (as you're not reducing your principal loan amount) but your repayments are lower during the interest-only term. For property investors, interest-only home loans can offer tax advantages too. Read more about repayment types.  

Weekly or fortnightly repayments. Choosing the right repayment frequency can make a difference over time, as well – choosing true fortnightly repayments when you apply will allow you to make the equivalent of one extra repayment per year, given there are 26 fortnights in a year. 

Offset. If you link an offset account to your Rocket variable home loan, depositing your savings into this account will help to reduce the interest payable on your principal. Calculate how much you could save with an offset account. 

You can start refinancing your home loan with Westpac the same way you apply for a new home loan with us – apply online or request a callback and we’ll get in touch to guide you through the process. And if eligible for our Priority Refinance®, you could access your new Westpac loan within days of signing your loan documents.

Once you’ve requested a callback, look through our home loan application checklist (PDF 403KB) to see which documents you will need to provide in your application.

Our home lending specialist will call and talk through the details of your financial situation, including your:

• Income
• Expenses
• Assets, and
• Liabilities, including credit cards and personal loans.

We’ll ask which type of home loan you want to apply for and answer any questions you have about the different products, interest rates and repayment types. 

We will also ask about the home loan you want to refinance – how much you still owe on the loan and what the property is worth now. Our home lending specialist will explain which forms you need to fill out and how to submit them to us – usually at a nearby branch or by email. We’ll then give you an idea of what you could borrow by refinancing with us and arrange a time for a valuer to come out and confirm the property value.

Once we’ve confirmed a valuation and have your documents, we’ll run a series of checks to finalise your application. If everything is in order, we’ll issue you a Letter of Offer. You’ll need to sign this and return it to us at a branch or by mail.

From here, we do a lot of the work for you. We’ll settle your new loan and discharge you from your old one by paying the balance with your new loan funds, including any fees and break costs. We will also shift the title from the old loan to your new loan with us. If there are leftover funds, we will put these into the Westpac account that you specified during the application.