Applying for a home loan

We’ll ask for the suburb or postcode you wish to buy in and how much you plan on spending. Don’t worry if this information changes, we can update it later.

Learn more about pre-approval and how it can help you with your property search.

We’ll ask for the address and estimated purchase price.

We’ll ask for your address, current market value, outstanding loan balance, and your current loan repayments.

To help us assess your application, we'll need you to provide the following information about your income and employment:

• Your salary before super.
• Any regular overtime and bonuses.
• If you’re self-employed, your net profit before tax.
• Other income sources, such as earnings from a side-business, investment property income, dividends from shares, or government benefits.

When applying for a home loan, you’ll need to provide a breakdown of regular expenses for yourself and your dependants (if you have them).
Include everyday living expenses, such as groceries and utility bills, plus your regular spending on the things that make life fun, such as dining out, streaming services, and hobbies.

We all track our expenses differently, so when applying for a Great Southern Bank Home Loan, you can choose to provide a weekly, fortnightly, or monthly breakdown.

If you’re applying online and want to save some time, you may wish to use our simplified expenses option. It groups your expenses into broad categories instead of listing your expenses out individually.

“Assets” is a banking term used to describe items of value that you already own. When applying for a home loan, we’ll ask you for the full value of your assets, including any joint assets.

Your assets may include:

• Savings
• Superannuation
• Shares and stocks
• Land and property
• Home contents and valuables
• Cars and vehicles

To get a clear picture of your outgoing expenses, we’ll also ask for details of any existing loans and debts.

Having the following information to hand can really help with completing your application:

• Outstanding loan balances and your regular repayment amount.
• Money currently owed on credit cards.
• Current HELP debts (formerly known as HECS) or student loans.
• Buy Now Pay Later balances such as Afterpay, and Zip Pay.
• Details of outstanding tax debts and payments.

Buying a home can also be a good opportunity to overhaul your finances. If you have multiple loans and are looking to streamline your repayments, you may want to consider a debt consolidation loan.

If you’re a wage or salary earner

• You will need to provide your recent payslips or bank statement showing the salary credits or your latest tax return (PAYG) statement.

If you’re self-employed

• We’ll need to see your last two years of financial statements including a profit and loss balance sheet, plus your business and individual tax returns.

• We’ll need to check you have enough funds to cover the upfront costs of buying a property. A bank statement showing enough funds to cover solicitor’s fees, the building and pest inspection, transfer fees and other costs in addition to your deposit is a common way to provide proof of funds.
• If your deposit is 10% or less, we’ll ask for proof of genuine savings over a period of at least three months – a bank statement showing regular savings deposits should cover most situations.

If you’re buying a home under the First Home Guarantee, Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee, or Family Home Guarantee you’ll need to complete the Home Buyer Declaration Form and provide some documents relevant to the Guarantee you’re applying for. Your Home Loan Specialist will provide more detail about what you’ll need and can answer any questions you may have.