Home loans for engineers: how to buy with less than 20% and skip the LMI bill

That is the thing to know first: most of the professional LMI waiver lists you will read about are for doctors, lawyers, accountants and nurses, and engineers are usually left off. Westpac's, for one, does not include them. That does not mean you need a 20% deposit. It means the route is different: a lender whose professional product does include engineering, a general no-LMI loan that does not care what you do for a living, or the government's 5% Deposit Scheme.

Your qualification is only 1 of 4 ways in. With a university engineering degree and a job in engineering, one lender we use will pay the LMI premium on a loan of up to 95% of the property value, with a 90% option alongside it. Without the degree, or if you would rather not be tied to a professional product, a 10% deposit with no LMI is available from another lender for a home or investment purchase.

If you are a first home buyer, the 5% Deposit Scheme sits alongside both. And a 20% deposit avoids the question altogether. I would start with your qualification, the work you do and what you have saved, then compare the repayments and the cash each option leaves you with.

An engineering job title does not get you approved on its own. Your income, debts, credit history, residency and the property still have to fit the bank's rules.

Lenders mortgage insurance (LMI) protects the lender, not you, if you cannot repay. It is usually charged once you borrow more than 80% of the value the lender accepts. Avoiding the premium does not shrink the loan or the repayments. Our LMI guide explains what the insurance does.

1. University degree and working in engineering? Check the professional option first.
2. 10% plus costs saved? Compare a general no-LMI loan too; no qualification needed.
3. First home buyer, or have not owned in 10 years, with 5% saved? Check the 5% Deposit Scheme.

More than one can apply to you. That is the point of the table.

One thing to note before you compare: lender-paid LMI, an LMI waiver and a government guarantee are 3 different things. With Granite's professional option the insurance still exists, the lender just pays the premium. A waiver removes the premium.

The scheme replaces it with a government guarantee. None of them removes the debt, so compare the rate and fees as well as the cash you need up front.

How much is the LMI saving worth? It depends on the price and how much you borrow, and this guide does not quote a figure it has not sourced. The one real number in it is an estimated $20k LMI comparison in the ubank example below, on a loan of about $700k; it shows the scale, not a realised saving.

Run your own price and deposit through our LMI calculator for an estimate. Then weigh it against the rate and fees of the loan you are comparing.

Granite's Professional loan lists engineering as an eligible industry and lends up to 95% of the property value, or 90% on its second option, with Granite paying the LMI premium. For the engineer pathway, the primary applicant needs an Australian or overseas university degree and must work in engineering. Granite accepts a TAFE or certificate qualification for IT professionals, but that exception is for IT, so do not assume it covers an engineering role. Our Granite review covers the lender more broadly.

A few other Granite rules decide whether it is worth your time before we go further. You need to be an Australian citizen or permanent resident living and working here, with clean credit. If you are employed, Granite wants at least 6 months in your current job, or 12 months' continuous work in the same industry if you are newer than that, and it will not take you while you are on probation.

If you are self employed, it wants 2 years of trading with an ABN and full financials. The loan is for an established home rather than a build, on principal and interest repayments, with a full offset account. Its genuine savings test can be waived for professional applicants who meet the criteria, so a family gift can make up the deposit, but you still need the cash for buying costs.

If you are applying with a partner, send us both roles and incomes. We will confirm who has to meet the professional requirement and how Granite treats a joint application before we choose the loan. We also check your degree, employment, residency and the property against the current criteria. Granite's product gives us an option to investigate; it is not an approval for every engineer.

You will not pay a separate LMI premium, but that does not automatically make it the cheapest loan. A higher rate or extra fees can outweigh the upfront saving over the years you keep the loan, so ask us to compare the full cost, not just the deposit.

A client came to us as an engineer buying with a registered nurse. They wanted an offset account and some savings left over after the purchase. The route we checked was a Westpac LMI waiver through the nurse's occupation, not the engineering role (our nurses home loan guide covers that waiver).

They had pre-approval in June 2026; by October the application needed resubmitting and updated overtime income was still being assessed, so there is no settlement in the records behind this guide. The point stands anyway: one person's job can open an option the other's cannot.

ubank lends to eligible buyers with a 10% deposit and no LMI for a home or investment purchase, with principal and interest repayments. You do not need to be an engineer. If you have 10% plus costs saved, I would put it in the comparison. Our ubank review covers its wider rules, including who it suits and who it does not.

The 90% purchase limit does not carry across to every refinance or interest-only loan, and ubank's Flex loan excludes construction and vacant land. We check the product, the property and your finances, then compare a current rate and fee quote. Our no-LMI home loan guide covers the wider options.

Here is why I compare the debt as well as the rate. Another pair of buyers chose ubank over lower rate options that would have added roughly $20k of LMI to their loan, and in February 2026 they had pre-approval for a $702k loan towards a $780k purchase. In May they let it lapse: the homes they wanted were outside the budget and they decided to build a bigger deposit first. That was a general no-LMI comparison, not an engineer waiver and not a completed purchase, but it shows the order of the questions.

The share of the property's value you borrow is called the loan to value ratio, or LVR. A 10% contribution gives you a 90% loan only if the valuation matches the price and no costs get added to the loan.

Example only, on an $800k home valued at $800k. These show the maths, not a loan offer, and leave out LMI and any fees added to the loan.

On top of that, allow for transfer duty after any concession, legal work, inspections, registration and settlement charges, moving costs and a buffer. Our deposit calculator separates the money towards the price from the other cash you need.

Two things move these numbers. A low valuation increases your contribution: if that $800k home is valued at $770k and the lender lends 90% of its own figure, the loan is $693k and you need $107k towards the price, which is $27k more than the $80k you planned, before costs. And a smaller deposit means more debt: choosing 5% instead of 10% in the table adds $40k to the loan. Compare the repayments as well as the deposit before you pick.

Qualifying for the LMI benefit is one check. Being able to repay the loan is a separate one, and it is the one that usually decides the purchase price. I would separate your base salary from overtime, allowances and bonuses so we can see what each lender will count.

I had a client, Kieran, an engineer moving into FIFO work on a base of about $115k with a roster uplift of roughly 20% on top. On his base alone the numbers supported about $680k to $700k under the 5% Deposit Scheme, and up to about $750k outside it. With the uplift counted, his income would be closer to $138k, which is a different purchase price. The uplift could only go into the assessment once it showed on an employment confirmation or on payslips, so the first step was getting those, not applying.

• Salaried engineers. Have your legal employer, start date, employment type and probation details ready, with whatever qualification or registration evidence the lender asks for.
• FIFO and site based engineers. Show the history of overtime, roster allowances, travel reimbursements and bonuses. Not every dollar on the payslip counts as income.
• Contract engineers. Tell us whether you are employed by the end client, a labour hire agency or your own business. Send the contract, the time left on it and your previous work history.
• Self employed engineers. Check the trading history and full financials the lender needs. A professional qualification does not replace income evidence.
• Software engineers. Check degree based eligibility separately from any employer based technology offer. The job title alone does not establish either.

One more that comes up a lot: HECS. A fire safety engineer asked us about the deposit, LMI and how much he could borrow. We ran 3 versions side by side: leave the HECS where it was, pay it off in full, or pay part of it down and keep enough cash for the home.

A pay rise later meant the estimates needed another look. That was planning work rather than an approval, and there is no completed purchase in the records, but it is the same trade-off most engineers with a HECS balance face. Our guide to how HECS affects your home loan runs through it.

Each lender treats these differently. Our new job home loan guide covers employment evidence and our technology employee guide covers employer based options.

Compare like with like.

• Use the same purchase price, valuation, loan amount, repayment type and term when you compare loans.
• Include interest, upfront and ongoing fees, offset or redraw access, and the cash left after settlement. Add LMI or any other low deposit charge wherever it applies.
• Show any extra borrowing separately. Keeping more savings by taking a bigger loan can help your buffer, but it also increases the debt you repay.
• Ask what happens if you refinance, increase the loan, change the property, move out or sell early. The original LMI benefit or pricing will not necessarily follow the changed loan.

What to have ready. For the first conversation, your qualification, role, employer, income and buying budget are enough. Once we know which option could fit, we will explain how to send the application documents securely. At that stage we will need:

• Current payslips, your employment contract and any probation or contract end dates.
• Your degree and any professional qualification or registration evidence the lender requires.
• Savings and deposit source evidence, debts and living expenses.
• Income history for overtime or bonuses, and full business financials if you are self employed.
• The property address, price, intended use and whether you are buying or refinancing.

The Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme is a separate option for eligible buyers purchasing a home to live in through a participating lender. The usual minimum deposit is 5%, and eligible single parents or legal guardians can qualify with 2% under a separate pathway. If family can help instead, our guarantor versus 5% Deposit Scheme guide compares the 2.

For the 5% pathway, you generally need to be a first home buyer or not have owned a home or land in Australia in the previous 10 years. Age, citizenship or permanent residency, the local property price cap and the lender's own assessment also apply. The single parent pathway has different ownership and family rules.

Since 1 October 2025 the scheme has no income caps and unlimited places. You still need to afford the loan and cover buying costs, the guarantee is not cash for the purchase, and having enough savings for a 20% deposit after costs can make you ineligible. Regional buyers now use the current scheme rather than the former regional guarantee, which closed to new applicants.

Qualifying for a professional loan does not automatically give you a scheme loan, so we check the participating lender and product separately. Our 5% Deposit Scheme guide covers it in more detail; read the official scheme rules and single parent eligibility before relying on either option.

Client examples are based on real situations. Names and identifying details have been changed.