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Doctor Borrowing Power, Explained

Two things decide how much you can borrow: the money left over each month after tax, HECS, living costs and other debts, and the deposit you have saved. Set your level and state, drag the sliders, and watch both limits move.

Estimates only. Not credit assistance or advice; a lender's own assessment will differ.
What you could borrow · single applicant, principal-and-interest, 30 years
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Income supports–
Deposit supports–
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Your situation

Award base salary used: – a year
$15,000
Estimate yours in the take-home pay calculator.
$2,500
Not counting rent that ends when you buy; banks test it against a hidden benchmark (HEM, explained below).
$0
Car and personal loans; allow something for large card limits too.
$100,000
Published for doctors at several lenders; how it works is on doctor home loans.
Advanced: interest rate and overtime counting
Default: the RBA average new-loan variable rate (June 2026). Banks test you at this rate plus at least 3 points, per APS 220.

Starting values are examples, not defaults a lender uses. Award levels assume a HELP debt and the waiver is on; untick either box to change that.

Where each dollar of your pay goes

Tax + MedicareHECSLiving expensesOther repaymentsSurplus for the loan
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The formula behind borrowing power

Monthly surpluspay after tax and HECS, minus living costs and other repayments × Loan factorset by the tested rate over 30 years = What your income supports
Deposit×19 with a 5% deposit; ×4 with 20% = What your deposit supports
Borrowing power = the smaller of the two

In words: take your pay after tax and HECS, subtract living costs and other repayments, and what is left each month is your surplus. Every $100 of monthly surplus supports about $12,200 of loan at the default 9.25% tested rate over 30 years, and a deposit supports 19 times itself when it is 5% of the purchase. Borrowing power is whichever of the two is smaller.

The fundamentals behind the model

LeverWhat it isWhere it comes from
The buffer Every new loan is assessed at the loan rate plus at least 3.0 percentage points, so a 6.25% loan is tested near 9.25%; lenders call this the serviceability test. APS 220, Attachment C
Living expenses and HEM Lenders benchmark your declared expenses against the Household Expenditure Measure, whose dollar tables are subscription-only, which is why this tool asks for your real number. The benchmark rises with children, and published bank calculator assumptions use the higher of your declared figure and HEM. Melbourne Institute; published bank calculator assumptions; the mechanic is also described in a Federal Court responsible-lending judgment (full citation under sources)
Existing debts and HECS Repayments on existing debts and your compulsory HELP repayment are subtracted before the surplus is tested; card limits count even when unused, at conversion rates no lender publishes. APG 223 (HELP repayments are deducted from gross income); the details are on HECS and your borrowing power
The "6 times income" line APRA treats lending at six or more times income as high-DTI and, from 1 February 2026, caps it at 20% of each bank's new lending. A limit on the bank's share of such loans, not a ceiling on you. APRA DTI limit activation

FAQ

Why is this estimate lower than the bank calculators I have tried?
Mostly because this model shows you the stress test. Under APRA's prudential standard, a bank must assess your repayments at the loan rate plus a buffer of at least 3 percentage points, so a loan advertised near 6 per cent is tested as if you paid around 9. Marketing calculators that skip or soften the buffer produce bigger, less realistic numbers; across the market, new loans were actually tested at an average of about 8.7 per cent in the March 2026 quarter.
Is this how much I can actually borrow?
No. It is a transparent model of the mechanics lenders use, built from your inputs, public regulator parameters and verified award pay data. Real lenders apply their own interest-rate floors, expense benchmarks, income shading and credit policies, none of which are fully published, so treat the output as a way to understand the levers rather than a quote. This tool is general information, not credit assistance or advice, and nothing you enter reaches any lender.
What is HEM and why does the tool ask for my real expenses?
The Household Expenditure Measure is a proprietary benchmark from the Melbourne Institute that lenders compare your declared living expenses against; published bank calculator assumptions use the higher of your declared figure and the benchmark. Because its dollar tables are subscription-only, no honest public tool can build HEM in, so this model uses the expenses you set and tells you that a lender will test them against a benchmark you cannot see. Declaring unrealistically low expenses does not help in practice, because the benchmark catches it.
How much does HECS change the result?
Toggle it and watch the surplus line: the compulsory repayment is deducted from your income before the surplus is tested, so at a repayment income of $100,000 roughly $381 a month leaves the calculation, which supports roughly $49,000 of loan at the average tested rate over 30 years. The full mechanics, including the 2025 rules that let a bank disregard a nearly-paid-off debt, are on the HECS and borrowing power page.
Why does the state I work in change the number?
Because the same training level is paid differently under each state's award, and this tool reads those verified award salaries directly. The base salary the model uses is shown under your level, and the differences between states are purely the award pay differences that also drive the site's state pay guides.
What if we are buying as a couple?
This model assesses a single applicant, so a couple's result is not simply your number doubled. A joint application pools both incomes and both sets of deductions: two tax and HELP positions, every debt of both applicants, and one shared set of living expenses tested against a couple or family benchmark rather than a single-person one. How each lender combines two incomes is not published, so run your own income here to understand the levers and leave the household combination to the lender.
Sources & methodology

Every model parameter is either verified award pay data, a cited public figure, or a user input for the values lenders do not publish; parameters checked 14 August 2026. General information only; not credit assistance, a credit quote, or financial advice.

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