Investors and existing property

Everything in the earlier modules applies to investors, only more of it. They have more income streams to shade, more loans to test and more tax effects to account for. That's why the widest gaps between lenders show up on investor deals, and why they reward the broker who understands where each one comes from.

Rent: shaded, then sometimes capped

Lenders typically count 70% to 80% of gross rent to allow for vacancies, agent fees, rates and maintenance. Some vary that by property type or location, cut it further for short-term or holiday letting, or count nothing for unusual properties.

The big one: how existing loans are tested

This is where lenders split furthest. Some count an existing investment loan at the repayment the client actually pays today. Others re-test its balance at their own assessment rate (around 9%) as though it were a new loan. For a client with three or four investment loans the difference runs into thousands of dollars a month.

Negative gearing

When an investment property costs more to hold than it earns, the loss reduces the owner's taxable income, so they pay less tax. Some lenders add that tax saving back into the client's income; others ignore it. The rules for how investment losses are taxed can change, and lenders update their treatment when they do, so check the current position for each lender rather than assuming.

Debt-to-income caps

Even when the surplus works, lenders also look at total debt as a multiple of gross income. Many limit lending at high multiples (often somewhere between 6 and 9 times income), or send those deals for extra review, and the regulator watches lending at six times income or more closely. Investors with large portfolios reach this limit first.

From $171k to $1.10M for the same couple. That isn't a typo, and it isn't unusual for investors. Every lever in this module is at work at once: how much of the rent counts, whether the three existing loans are tested at what the couple actually pays or re-tested at the lender's rate, what credit the tax effects get, and which living-expense figure applies to the household. Each lender pulls them in its own combination. Most sit in the middle, around $439k.