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Banks will assess your income and expenses, as well as use the Household Expenditure Measure to assess your borrowing power. There’s no set time frame for how long this can take. Depending on the circumstances and the lender it can be anything from under an hour to several weeks. More complex applications can take even longer - so how does your lender stack up?

CommBank (CBA) Home Loan Approval Times

According to CommBank’s website, while some customers have home loan contracts in place within 60 minutes, loans can often take 4-7 business days to be accepted.

InfoChoice contacted CommBank for a more accurate estimate, but has not received a response.

NAB Home Loan Approval Times

NAB has introduced its Simple Home Loan, a digital platform with what Home Ownership Executive Andy Kerr calls “fast and effortless” home loan approvals.

“Already we have seen some home loans unconditionally approved in as little as 15 minutes” Mr Kerr told Infochoice.

About 90% of NAB home loans are processed through the platform, with 35% of eligible customers approved in under one hour, and 50% receiving a decision within 24 hours.

In 2022, NAB claimed its average approval time across all home loan applications was less than two days

ANZ Home Loan Approval Times

ANZ publishes information about its home loan servicing levels here. As of September 2023, these are some of the standard turnaround times for the application of an assessment.

Stage

‘Simpler switch’-Like for like refinances that meet certain requirements

Simple application

Complicated application

New application

1 day

3 days

7 days

Additional documents

2 days

3 days

3 days

Once the loan has been approved, the following wait times are standard while the loan is finalised.

Stage

Service level

Document preparation

1 day

Document verification

1 day

Suncorp Home Loan Approval Times

Dylan Atherton, Head of Home Lending Products at Suncorp, told InfoChoice the average turnaround time for home lending applications is under three days. In 2022 it also introduced the Suncorp SunLight loan, which allows eligible lower risk applications to receive a response within 48 hours.

Mr Atherton says preparation is one of the best ways to speed up the approval process.

“Being organised with your identity documents and other approval information can significantly streamline things,” he told InfoChoice.

Macquarie Bank Home Loan Approval Times

According to Macquarie’s website, most applications can be turned around in under one business day if it qualifies. In 2021, a Macquarie spokesperson told Infochoice Group the average time to assessment, how long it takes for a credit analyst to pick up an application, was six hours.

Bank of Queensland Home Loan Approval Times

In 2021, BOQ told Infochoice Group its average conditional approval time was two business days, but have since stopped sharing this information externally.

AMP Home Loan Approval Times

An AMP spokesperson told Infochoice Group in 2021 the average turnaround time to a credit decision was just under six days. However, the AMP website says the majority of digital home loans can be approved these days within 24-48 hours.

Update resultsUpdate
LenderHome LoanInterest Rate Comparison Rate* Monthly Repayment Repayment type Rate Type Offset Redraw Ongoing Fees Upfront Fees Max LVR Lump Sum Repayment Additional Repayments Split Loan Option TagsFeaturesLinkComparePromoted ProductDisclosure
5.69% p.a.
6.16% p.a.
$2,899
Principal & Interest
Fixed
$0
$530
90%
  • Available for purchase or refinance, minimum 10% deposit needed to qualify.
  • No application, ongoing monthly or annual fees.
  • Flexibility to split your loan with both fixed and variable rates
Disclosure
5.99% p.a.
5.90% p.a.
$2,995
Principal & Interest
Variable
$0
$0
80%
  • No application or ongoing fees. Annual rate discount
  • Unlimited redraws & additional repayments. LVR <80%
  • A low-rate variable home loan from a 100% online lender. Backed by the Commonwealth Bank.
Disclosure
6.04% p.a.
6.06% p.a.
$3,011
Principal & Interest
Variable
$0
$530
90%
  • No application, ongoing monthly or annual fees.
  • Extra repayments allowed with fee-free redraw
  • Add an optional offset sub-account, T&C's apply.
  • Quick and easy online application process.
Disclosure
Important Information and Comparison Rate Warning

Base criteria of: a $400,000 loan amount, variable, fixed, principal and interest (P&I) repayments. All products with a link to a product provider’s website have a commercial marketing relationship between us and these providers. These products may appear prominently and first within the search tables regardless of their attributes and may include products marked as promoted, featured or sponsored. The link to a product provider’s website will allow you to get more information or apply for the product. By de-selecting “Show online partners only” additional non-commercialised products may be displayed and re-sorted at the top of the table. For more information on how we’ve selected these “Sponsored”, “Featured” and “Promoted” products, the products we compare, how we make money, and other important information about our service, please click here.

Monthly repayment figures are estimates only, exclude fees and are based on the advertised rate for a 30 year term and for the loan amount entered. Actual repayments will depend on your individual circumstances and interest rate changes. For Interest only loans – the monthly repayment figure is applicable only for the interest only period. After the interest only period, your principal and interest repayments will be higher than these repayments. For Fixed rate loans – the monthly repayment is based on an interest rate that applies for an initial period only and will change when the interest rate reverts to the applicable variable rate.

The Comparison rate is based on a secured loan amount of $150,000 loan over 25 years. WARNING: These comparison rates apply only to the example or examples given. Different amounts and terms will result in different comparison rates. Costs such as redraw fees or early repayment fees together with costs savings such as fee waivers, are not included in the comparison rate but may influence the cost of the loan. Comparison rates are not calculated for revolving credit products. Rates correct as of . View disclaimer.

Important Information and Comparison Rate Warning

What is home loan pre-approval?

If you get in touch with a lender before you start firing offers on all the properties that catch your eye, you might be able to get conditional preapproval. This basically means the lender will approve you, pending conditions, for a home loan up to a certain amount. There are a few advantages to doing this:

Firstly, it gives you a much better idea of exactly which properties you should be looking at. It’s no use putting in a bid on a house likely to sell for over $1 million if you are only going to be able to borrow $600,000. When you have preapproval and a deposit, you can have a pretty good idea of your purchasing power, and browse properties accordingly.

Secondly, having preapproval means realtors representing sellers might look more favourably at you. It demonstrates you are a serious buyer, and shows there shouldn’t be any financial issues with the transaction going through. This also signals to the selling agent you have a hard budget and won’t be tempted by cat-and-mouse games of increasing your offer.

Finally, preapproval can speed up the application turnaround once you have an offer accepted. Your lender will likely have most of your important details on record already, so a lot of the steps towards unconditional approval are cut out.

Steps to home loan approval

Shop around to find a lender or loan product that suits you

Before you apply anywhere, it’s important to compare your options to make sure you are getting a competitive deal. You should have a look at several lenders, comparing things like rates, fees, extra features and repayment options. You should also work out whether you are looking for a fixed or variable rate mortgage. It’s worth taking your time here: even a small difference in rates can alter your repayments dramatically.

Compare home loans from some of Australia’s most reputable lenders with Infochoice.

Apply for preapproval

Making sure you’re organised before you apply ensures you aren’t wasting time with a back and forth with your lender while they get all the details you’ll need. Each lender will have specific documents and information they need from you, so make sure you look this up and have everything ready. Some of the requirements they will have might include:

  • Identity Documents (Could include drivers licence, passport, Medicare card)

  • Financial information (Payslips if you are an employee. If you are self employed, it can be a bit more complicated and you might need to provide personal tax returns, business statements and ABN information, among other things).

  • Information about your deposit

Preapproval can take just a few hours, but can stretch out to weeks if there are issues with your application. Getting all your documents in order prior to applying prevents any problems from insufficient evidence, but there are other factors that might unavoidably make the application take longer, which we’ll get to.

Property valuation

Once you’ve got preapproval, you can go into the market with much more intent, and start putting in offers. There’s really no time frame for this, it just depends on the market and how strict your preferences are. Keep in mind that pre-approval periods typically last 90 days.

Once you have an offer accepted on a property that suits you, you can then go back to the lender who preapproved you and they will undergo a property valuation. This is to assess the Loan to Value Ratio (LVR) of the loan. Some lenders have extremely fast valuation databases that can be virtually instant, but in other cases it might be a bit more of a prolonged process. Ideally, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of days, but if the lenders valuation comes in substantially below the purchase price, this can complicate things, and the application might be referred to the lenders credit department.

Full approval

After the valuation is completed and everything is in order, its up to the lender to finalise all the details and make your loan official. Depending on the lender, this ranges from the same day to about a week.

Why is my home loan taking so long to be approved?

These are some of the most common reasons that cause longer approval times.

Income is difficult to verify

If you are self employed, getting a home loan can become a bit more difficult. Lenders are normally a bit more apprehensive about self employed applicants because their income is harder to verify.

Whereas employees normally just need to provide a few payslips, the self employed usually need to provide extra evidence like business profit and loss statement, ABN registration details or personal tax returns, among other things. There might be a bit of back and forth with your lender as they try to get hold of all the information they need to approve you.

Credit approval

Ideally, your home loan application is given to someone in the direct lending department of the bank, who can verify all your details and approve you with a quick turn around. Some lenders though have credit departments that certain applications have to be sent to be approved, which tends to mean a delay.

This generally happens when certain red flags are raised with an application. For example, a poor credit history or a recent default usually means the application is automatically referred to a credit team, who will conduct a more in depth analysis of the borrower's trustworthiness. The following are a few other examples of situations where an application might be referred to credit, and therefore delayed:

  • The loan will push the applicants debt to income (DTI) ratio above a certain threshold (many lenders won’t lend more than 7-times someone’s income)

  • The lender appraises the property at a significantly lower value to the purchase price

  • Unusual or suspicious credit activity