NAB Home Loan Review 2026

If your medical or allied-health profession qualifies, you may be able to buy a home to live in with a 5% deposit and no lenders mortgage insurance. Your registration, property and application still need to meet NAB’s rules. LMI protects the bank, even though you pay for it.

NAB also has a separate professional LMI waiver for other professions, including eligible IPA accountants and associate or fellow actuaries. Eligible lawyers and accountants are capped at 90%. Some government lawyers may qualify without a practising certificate if they can show they are currently practising.

Some interns, residents and registrars completing supervised training can qualify for the medical offer. No single property used as security can be worth more than $4.5m. We check your registration, membership, income and employment against the relevant offer before counting on an LMI saving.

If your latest business year is stronger than the one before it, using that year alone could make a difference to how much you can borrow. NAB may accept your latest lodged tax return instead of asking for 2 years. Our self-employed home loan guide explains the other documents you may need.

This can also help if you’re buying through the 5% Deposit Scheme. NAB may treat an eligible scheme-backed loan as 80% of the property value when deciding how many years of tax returns it needs. That could let you use 1 lodged year and a 5% deposit without LMI. It does not reduce the amount you owe or remove the normal repayment checks.

Getting a regular wage from your company does not always make you an employee for a home-loan application. NAB may treat you as self-employed if you, your partner or a related trust controls the business. It can also ask more questions if you are a trustee, partner or trust beneficiary.

A self-employed trade contractor and an employed administrator wanted another $350k for a rear extension and kitchen renovation. With a $450k existing loan, they needed $800k in total lending against their $1.35m home, or 59.3% of its value. The bank’s first assessment left them $180k short.

The loan went ahead in August 2026, taking their total lending to $800k and providing the $350k needed for the renovation.

NAB participates in the Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme, administered by Housing Australia. If you qualify, you may be able to buy your first home with a 5% deposit and no LMI. A qualifying single parent or legal guardian may need a 2% deposit under the Single Parent Stream. Price caps and NAB’s normal approval checks still apply. Our first-home buyer guide covers the wider buying process and costs.

The deposit is only part of the cash you need. Allow for conveyancing, inspections, moving costs and any stamp duty, as well as money you want to keep aside after settlement.

NAB may also ask where your deposit came from. A gift or inheritance can form part of the cash you use to complete the purchase, but it does not count as genuine savings. A clean rental repayment history of at least 90 days can count if it equals 5% of the purchase price. NAB also accepts money released through the First Home Super Saver Scheme.

NAB checks the income it accepts, your debts, credit-card limits, living costs, dependants and the property. That is why two lenders can reach different borrowing amounts from the same household figures.

NAB tests your repayments at the higher of 5.75% or 3% above the actual rate. At an actual rate of 6%, that means testing your repayments at 9%. You do not pay that test rate.

NAB can also add strata fees, private school costs, child support and some insurance costs to its normal living-expense allowance. If you’re buying an apartment, the strata bill could reduce how much you can borrow compared with a house at the same income.

See APRA’s normal repayment-test rules for the broader bank requirement.

An unused credit card can still reduce how much you can borrow. NAB counts 3.8% of the card or overdraft limit as a monthly commitment, even when you owe nothing. A $15k limit therefore counts as $570 a month. We’d check whether reducing a limit you don’t need would help before you apply.

If you have $20k or less left on your HELP debt, NAB may agree to leave the repayment out of its borrowing calculation in limited cases. Before using your savings to clear it, compare the extra borrowing power with the cash you would lose from your deposit. Our HECS and home loan guide explains the trade-off.

Use our borrowing power calculator as a starting point, then ask us to compare your actual figures. Different lenders can reach different answers from the same income and debts.

If you’re refinancing the home you live in and fall short under NAB’s normal repayment test, its Alternative Refinance Assessment may help. It is limited to principal and interest loans. NAB first checks your repayments under its normal rules and a separate refinance calculation. If you fall short under both, it may use a lower assessment buffer to check whether the refinance is affordable. It cannot be used for an investment loan, a top-up, cash out or a guarantee.

If you’re 55 or older, NAB treats you as approaching retirement even if you plan to keep working. The same rule can apply if you expect to retire within 10 years. Before relying on a long loan term, check how NAB expects you to repay the balance.

NAB must check the evidence and accept the plan.

Already retired? Different treatment may apply if you can repay without employment income.

NAB can lend for an investment property, but it is usually stricter than it is for a home you plan to live in. Even with a good salary, you can run out of borrowing room after several properties because NAB uses a lower total-debt limit for investors. See our Queensland investment loan guide for the wider planning issues.

For a new purchase, NAB starts with rent it can support from documents such as a lease, appraisal or valuation. For applications from 27 August 2026, the annual rent used is capped at 7% of the property value. NAB then counts 90% of the supported rent and separately allows for property expenses rather than assuming every dollar is available for repayments.

In practice, rental income can be reduced twice: first through the percentage NAB counts, then through a property-expense allowance. Body corporate fees may be added separately as well. That is why a high advertised yield does not always improve your borrowing power as much as you expect.

Start with whether you will use an offset, then compare the rate and ongoing fees. You can also split the loan if you want a fixed rate for part of your borrowing.

With NAB’s Tailored Variable loan, the combined balance across your linked offset accounts reduces the balance used to calculate interest. Splitting the same savings across several accounts helps you organise your money; it does not multiply the interest saving.

These are the main fees to allow for when comparing NAB home loans.

The $12 monthly Tailored fee adds up to $144 a year. Base Variable has no monthly loan service fee. If you already have a Choice Package, allow for its $395 annual package fee.

Your contract confirms the fees that apply. Allow for any valuation, government and legal charges as well. We compare the rate for your loan size, deposit and purpose, then work out whether the offset and other features justify the cost.

Interest-only repayments can give you some breathing room, but the loan balance does not fall during that period. NAB caps total interest-only periods at 5 years for a home you live in and 10 years for an investment loan. NAB checks whether you can afford the higher principal and interest repayments over the shorter term left afterwards.

Having your documents ready helps, but timing also depends on the valuation and any extra checks NAB needs. A business structure or unusual property can lead to more questions before you receive a final answer.

These are review estimates once NAB has the required documents, not a promise of formal approval or settlement within that time. We’ll check the current timing against your contract and settlement dates before you apply.

NAB’s conditional pre-approval certificate is valid for 90 days. Your finances still need to meet its requirements, and NAB must accept the property and valuation. If it expires before you buy, you may need to reapply.

Ask NAB to review your existing rate before you decide to refinance. A better offer from NAB could save you the cost and paperwork of switching, but it still needs to stack up against the alternatives.

We compare your current NAB loan with more than 30 lenders, ask NAB to review its rate and calculate how long any switching costs would take to recover. If staying puts you in a better position, we’ll tell you. Read our refinancing guide or ask us to review your NAB loan.

NAB’s Advantedge business backed Connective Essentials. Advantedge closed to new applications on 30 September 2025, with existing loans moving to NAB-branded products during 2026. Our Connective Home Loans review explains the distinction between that older product and the current Connective range.

A pre-approval is mainly a check of your finances. NAB must still accept the property, valuation and loan amount. Send us the address early, especially for an apartment, acreage or construction project, so you know what needs checking before you commit.

NAB generally wants a residential property to be at least 50 square metres when balconies and car parking are included, or at least 40 square metres when they are excluded. A smaller property will not work if it is a serviced apartment or part of what NAB considers a speculative development.

A serviced apartment may work if permanent residential use is legally allowed, it can be removed from the letting agreement within 4 months, and it can be sold separately in the normal residential market. NAB will want to see the management agreement.

NAB can also treat your purchase differently if you hold 4 or more homes in one development, or land that will become 4 or more lots.

Vacant residential land can work if it is not part of a speculative development. Rural or acreage property usually needs to be mainly a home, have suitable power and water, sit within NAB’s location limits and meet its land-size rules.

NAB’s standard land-size limit is less than 10 hectares, or less than 2.2 hectares when there is no dwelling. NAB may look at some larger properties individually. We would check the address before you sign.

NAB wants a fully signed, fixed-price building contract with an independent builder. It will not fund owner-builder construction, cost-plus contracts, relocatable or kit homes, or some split and simple-works contracts.

If you are building, send the contract and progress-payment schedule to us before the loan is lodged. Our construction finance guide explains how the payments work.

NAB's bridging option is generally for existing NAB home-loan customers. If you are new to NAB and need to buy before you sell, compare bridging lenders early.

If you’re on an accepted temporary visa and live in Australia, NAB generally limits borrowing to 70% of the property’s value. That also applies if you’re applying with an Australian citizen. We’ll check NAB’s current visa requirements before you apply.

NAB also says its home loans are not available if you need Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) approval to buy residential property. An accepted visa alone does not confirm eligibility.

Hunter Galloway only helps clients living in Australia. We don’t arrange home loans for clients based overseas.

NAB may lend to some companies and trusts. When every borrower is a company or trustee, the loan is generally capped at 80% and cash out is not available. NAB does not offer SMSF home loans.

NAB may ask for extra evidence to confirm the value and how the sale was arranged. Tell us about the relationship and transaction before the contract is finalised so we can check what the bank will need.

There is no published NAB credit score that guarantees approval. The bank looks at missed repayments, recent applications, defaults, hardship arrangements and how you have managed your accounts. Tell us about an old issue early so we can check the dates and explain what happened.

If you want to borrow extra against your home, NAB will ask what the money is for. It may need quotes, invoices or other evidence even where there is no single published dollar cap. Some purposes are not accepted. Adding other debts to the home loan can also change the assessment and increase the total interest if you repay them over a longer term.

Use your situation to narrow the shortlist. Then compare the borrowing amount, cash needed, repayments and fees using the same property and loan amount.

Compare our CommBank review, Bankwest review and Macquarie review for the alternatives mentioned above.

Hunter Galloway is independently owned and is not owned by NAB or another bank. Most major lenders we use pay broadly similar commissions, which we disclose before you proceed.

We compare more than 30 lenders and must act in your best interests. Our Brisbane mortgage brokers can compare NAB with other lenders based on your income, deposit and the home you want to buy. Read how we review lenders and ASIC’s guidance on the mortgage broker best-interests duty.