Keystone Home Loans

Free calculator

Borrowing Power Calculator

Find out how much you may be able to borrow for your home, based on your income, living costs and other debts.

How to use this calculator

Your details

Who’s applying

Application type
Dependants

Children or others who rely on your income.

Income

Before tax, not including super.

Things like overtime, bonuses or rent from an investment property.

Expenses and debts

Rent, groceries, transport, insurance, bills and phone. Leave at $0 to use the benchmark for your household.

Car, personal, HECS-HELP or other home loans: the minimum repayments.

Add up the limits on all cards, including store cards, even if you pay them off.

Repayments on this amount

Estimate repayments if you borrowed your full borrowing power.

Example rates only.

Repayment frequency
You may be able to borrow$408,000

Your borrowing power

You may be able to borrow up to

$408,000

Assessed at 8.99% p.a. over 30 years.

Your monthly budget

Income after tax
$4,753
Living expenses
$1,472
Lenders use a household spending benchmark when it’s higher than what you enter. We’ve used it here.
Loans and credit cards
$0
Left for home loan repayments
$3,281

Repayments on $408,000

Repayments
$2,444 / month
for 30 years at 5.99% p.a. (basic variable)
Book a free consultation to confirm your numbers

Estimate only, not an offer of credit or financial advice. Lenders apply their own rates, fees and assessment rules.

Where your monthly income goes

Lenders start from your income, take out tax, living costs and other debts, and lend against what’s left.
  • Tax (estimate)$1,080 / month
  • Living expenses$1,472 / month
  • Loans and credit cards$0 / month
  • Left for home loan repayments$3,281 / month
How this calculator works
  • Income after tax is estimated with ATO pay-as-you-go withholding rates. After-tax income is added as entered. Other income counts towards the first applicant.
  • Living expenses are the higher of what you enter and the Household Expenditure Measure (HEM) benchmark for your income, household and dependants.
  • Credit card limits count as 3.82% of the limit each month, whether or not you use the card.
  • The loan is assessed as principal and interest over 30 years at 8.99% p.a. APRA expects banks to check you could still afford repayments at a rate at least 3 percentage points above the loan's rate, and each lender has its own rules, so a lender's figure can be lower.
  • The result is rounded down to the nearest $1,000 and capped at $10 million. Repayments are rounded up to the next dollar.
Woman working out her budget on a laptop at home

How Much Can I Borrow?

One of the questions mortgage brokers get asked most is “how much can I borrow to buy a property?”, and it’s why we have a calculator here for you!

Borrowing power is the maximum amount a lender will lend you for a home loan. Your borrowing power is based on your savings, income, expenses, debts and credit scores. Knowing your borrowing power is important as it helps you set realistic expectations and narrow down your property search to homes within your budget.

No Obligations

How to use

How To Estimate Your Borrowing Power

Enter Your Income

In the Income section, enter your income from your job(s) and any other sources of income like second jobs or investments. You can enter other income as before or after tax. Enter your income before (...

Enter Monthly Expenses

How much do you spend each month on food, petrol and car maintenance like rego, insurances, holidays, health and beauty? You’ll notice the more you spend each month, the more it reduces your borrowing...

Enter Other Loans And Credit Cards

How to work out your “monthly repayments on other loans”. This section asks for the total of all your minimum monthly repayments on your debts. List every debt you have, which includes HECS-HELP and p...

Take Steps To Increase Your Borrowing Power

Our Borrowing Power Calculator gives you an estimate, not a lender's answer.

Every lender assesses income, expenses and debts in its own way, so what a bank will actually lend you can be higher or lower than this figure (or any other online calculator's).

What moves the number most is usually the steps you take before you apply, and those are worth planning.

At Keystone Home Loans we focus on getting you home loan ready, which includes helping you to optimise what you can afford to borrow.  In reality, when we are working with you on your home loan, your borrowing power will likely be significantly higher because we give you personalised strategies that directly impact the formula a bank uses to calculate borrowing power.

Talking to Phillip at least 6 months before you are ready to buy can help you increase your borrowing power so you can buy a better home.

Couple on a video call working out their borrowing power
4 Strategies

Four Strategies To Increase Your Borrowing Capacity

Figures from this calculator for a single applicant on $100,000 with no dependants; yours will differ.

Reduce Credit Card Limits

Reduce your credit card limit from $5,000 down to $1,000, to increase what you can borrow by about $19,000.

Increase Your Salary

  • From $100,000 p.a. to $110,000 p.a. to increase your borrowing capacity by about $62,000.
  • From $110,000 p.a. to $120,000 p.a. to increase your borrowing capacity by about $43,000.

Check Personal Loans

Car repayment of $100 per month reduces your borrowing power by about $12,000. Consider paying down in full.

Reduce Private Health Insurance

Reduce your private health insurance premium by $100 per month, to increase your borrowing capacity by about $12,000.