Home Loan Serviceability

When you apply for a home loan, a lender will take many factors into consideration when deciding whether or not to approve your application. One factor is serviceability. This is when the bank decides whether you can comfortably "service" the loan repayments, after considering all of your income, expenses and liabilities.

What is mortgage serviceability?

Serviceability is your ability to pay, or service, your home loan repayments each month. Banks calculate your serviceability to ensure you can afford the mortgage and to determine how much of a home loan debt you can manage.

Different banks have different ways of calculating serviceability, and different criteria when it comes to the serviceability standards they will accept. This means that one bank might approve you for a set amount, and a different bank could approve you for a higher or lower value. Banks don’t often make their exact serviceability standards public, but they do tend to calculate serviceability in a similar way.

Calculate your serviceability

All lenders differ in how they assess serviceability and the standards they apply in determining creditworthiness and borrowing power. However, to get a general idea of your borrowing power, you can use our "How much can I borrow?" calculator.

To use the calculator, enter your income from all sources. Then enter any other loans you have, the total limit of all your credit cards and your number of dependants.

How do lenders calculate serviceability?

In general, lenders calculate serviceability by adding together your income from all sources, subtracting your expenses and debt liabilities and adding in the monthly mortgage payment.

Income can come from a variety of sources beyond your job. Lenders will take into account income from:

Income

Some types of income will not be included in full in lenders’ calculations. Rental income, for instance, is assumed to fluctuate, as an investment property could go untenanted for a period of time. Because of this, most lenders will only accept up to 80% of gross rental income in their assessment of a borrower’s total income. Likewise, investments such as shares have the potential to fluctuate in value, or even to depreciate. Because of this, most lenders will accept up to 80% of investment income in their assessment of total income.

Debt

Lenders will also build a buffer into their calculations. While you may be able to service a home loan of a certain size at current interest rates, lenders want to know that you’ll continue to be able to service this debt should rates rise substantially. Most lenders add an interest rate buffer of around 2.5% to serviceability calculations. This means if the loan interest rate is 2.75%, they'll add 2.5% to assess your ability to repay the loan at 5.25%.

How can I improve my borrowing power?

There are two main ways to increase your borrowing capacity: you can either increase your income or decrease your expenses.

Increasing income can often be influenced by factors beyond your control. You can ask your employer for a pay rise, invest in assets that will provide regular income or take on a second job, but some of these strategies may not be practical for you.

However, you have far more control over your expenses. You can decrease the liabilities you have by committing yourself to paying down your existing debt. Work out a budget to tackle reducing your debt. You can also close out credit or loan accounts you don’t use. Even if you don’t owe money on them, the credit limit on these products can eat into your borrowing power.