Seven steps stand between you and a set of keys. Most buyers run them out of order, and the mistakes are expensive: a forfeited deposit, a $14,000 LMI premium nobody flagged, a dream home sold to someone whose finance was already approved. This guide walks the buying property process in Australia from first dollar saved to settlement day, in the order that wins.
One rule sits above the rest. Sort your finance before you fall for a property and you'll pay less, negotiate harder and settle on time; do it backwards and you're bidding blind.
And 2026 rewards the prepared buyer. The RBA lifted the cash rate three times between February and May 2026, held it at 4.35% in June, and meets again on 11 August 2026. Higher rates have thinned the crowd: auction clearance rates sit in the low 40s, and Cotality's June 2026 Home Value Index puts the national median at $937,722 after a 0.4% monthly dip. Fewer bidders means more negotiating room for the ones who turn up ready. Lenders, meanwhile, are assessing applications harder than they were a year ago, which makes preparation worth real money.
What does the process look like, start to finish?
Nearly every Australian purchase moves through the same seven stages. Timing shifts by state and by contract. The order doesn't.
| Step | What happens | Typical timing |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Get finance-ready | Deposit saved, credit tidied, budget set | 1–6 months |
| 2. Pre-approval | A lender agrees in principle to a loan amount | 3–10 business days once documents are in |
| 3. Search and shortlist | Inspections, suburb research, due diligence | 4–12 weeks |
| 4. Offer or auction | Negotiation, or bidding on auction day | Days to a few weeks |
| 5. Contract exchange | Deposit paid; cooling-off may apply | Same day to 2 weeks |
| 6. Valuation and formal approval | Lender values the property and approves the loan unconditionally | 1–3 weeks |
| 7. Settlement | Balance transfers, title changes hands, keys | 30–90 days from contract |
The most common mistake isn't inside any single step. It's the sequence. Buyers start at step 3, fall in love with a house in week two, then scramble through steps 1 and 2 while another buyer, pre-approved a month earlier, signs the contract. Start at step 1.
End to end, allow three to six months from the first finance conversation to keys in hand. It can compress to six weeks when your money is sorted and the vendor wants out fast. It stretches well past six months when buyers shop first and arrange the finance later.
How much money do you need before you start looking?
You've probably been told to save a 20% deposit. That rule got renegotiated.
For decades, 20% was the price of avoiding Lender's Mortgage Insurance, a premium that typically runs $15,000–$22,000 on a $1M loan and gets added to your balance, where it accrues interest for 30 years. Under specialist lending policies available through Wity, any borrower can now buy with a 15% deposit and no LMI. Nurses, midwives, allied health professionals and senior professionals such as lawyers and accountants can go to 10%. Doctors and dentists can buy with just 5% down.
There's a government route too. Since 1 October 2025, the Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme (formerly the First Home Guarantee) has had no income caps and no place limits: eligible first home buyers can purchase with a 5% deposit and no LMI, under price caps of $1.5M in NSW, $1M in Queensland, $950,000 in Victoria and $850,000 in WA.
The deposit isn't the whole bill, though. Stamp duty is the biggest extra, and 2026 moved it sharply in buyers' favour: the ACT abolished all first home buyer duty from 1 July 2026, WA now exempts established homes up to $600,000, and Queensland has scrapped duty on new builds for first home buyers with no price cap. Our stamp duty guide breaks it down state by state. Then add conveyancing ($1,500–$3,000), building and pest inspections ($400–$700 in most capitals), and a buffer for lender and government fees. A workable rule of thumb: on an established home, allow 4–5% of the purchase price for costs on top of your deposit, less in the states that have cut first home buyer duty.
The deposit decision, with real numbers.
Same couple. Two paths.
Erin and Dan have $120,000 saved and their eye on a $780,000 townhouse in Chermside, on Brisbane's northside.
Path A — wait for 20%. They need $156,000, so they keep renting and saving $2,000 a month for another 18 months. Brisbane's median rose 17.4% in the year to June 2026 (Cotality). If growth slowed to even 4% a year while they saved, the same townhouse could cost roughly $31,000 more by the time they got there, consuming most of what they'd put away.
Path B — buy now with 15%. They put down $117,000 on an 85% loan of $663,000, with no LMI under the policy above. Most lenders would charge roughly $11,000–$14,000 in LMI at that deposit level, and closer to $28,000 once 30 years of interest on the added premium is counted. They keep that money, and they start building equity 18 months sooner.
The gap: Path B leaves Erin and Dan owning sooner, five figures better off, and negotiating in a buyer's market instead of whatever market exists in 2028.
Based on typical scenarios. Individual outcomes vary.
Why does pre-approval come before the property search?
Pre-approval is a lender's conditional yes: based on your income, debts and deposit, they'll lend up to a set amount, typically valid for about 90 days. It tells you your real budget, marks you as a serious buyer to agents, and lets you sign or bid with confidence. Without it, you're not house hunting. You're window shopping. The mechanics, the traps and the paperwork are covered in our pre-approval explainer.
The paperwork is smaller than most people fear: recent payslips, three months of bank statements, ID, and an honest picture of your debts, including HECS and credit card limits. Two details trip buyers up. Lenders assess your card limit rather than the balance, so a $20,000 limit you clear monthly still cuts your capacity, and cancelling unused cards before applying can lift it. And pre-approval is conditional, not a promise: the lender still has to accept the specific property, and its valuation, later in the process.
Two 2026 changes make it matter more than usual. APRA held its 3% serviceability buffer at the 28 May 2026 review, so a lender assesses you at your actual rate plus three percentage points. And from 1 February 2026, APRA's debt-to-income caps went live: no more than 20% of a lender's new owner-occupier and investor loans can sit at six times income or above. Follow the chain through. Lenders now ration their high-DTI approvals, which means the same application can get a yes at one lender and a no at three others, which means the number from a single bank's calculator tells you almost nothing. The Wity Borrowing Power Assessment models your capacity across 45+ lenders rather than one bank's menu, so you learn your real ceiling before you start inspecting homes, not after an agent asks for proof of funds.
One trap worth naming: unexplained money. We've seen a single $4,000 transfer landing in a savings account without a paper trail hold up an approval for a fortnight, because "genuine savings" means three months of statements showing the deposit didn't appear last week. Tidy your accounts before you apply, not during.
Auction or private treaty: which suits this market?
Private treaty, where the property lists at a price and you negotiate, accounts for the bulk of Australian sales. Auctions dominate inner Sydney and Melbourne. In 2026, the difference between them is working for buyers.
With clearance rates in the low 40s, more properties are passing in on auction day and selling in negotiation afterwards. That shifts leverage. A vendor who watched their auction stall is far more open to an offer with conditions attached: a finance clause, a building-and-pest clause, a settlement date that suits you. Ask for them.
Do the due diligence before you commit, whichever path you take. Building and pest for houses. Strata records for units, because a $40,000 special levy hides in body corporate minutes, not in the listing photos. Check flood and bushfire overlays with the local council, and pull comparable sales from the past 90 days rather than relying on the agent's price guide. When you make an offer, attach evidence of your pre-approval and give it a deadline of 24 to 48 hours; an open-ended offer is a free option for the vendor to shop around.
The difference that catches buyers out is cooling-off. Buy at auction and there is no cooling-off period; the fall of the hammer is an unconditional exchange, so your finance and inspections must be done beforehand. Buy by private treaty and most states give you a short window to withdraw, usually for a small penalty, though the rules differ sharply between states. Our cooling-off period guide covers each state's rules and the traps around waiving them.
Buying interstate? Assume nothing carries over. Cooling-off rights, stamp duty and settlement conventions are the three rules that change most at the border, and agents will quote you their state's version as if it were national law.
The upshot: an unconditional-ready buyer wins auctions, and a pre-approved buyer with sensible clauses wins negotiations. Either way, the preparation happens before you raise your hand.
What happens between contract and settlement day?
Signing starts the clock; it doesn't finish the deal. At exchange you'll typically pay a 5–10% deposit into the agent's trust account, where it sits until settlement. Then three things have to happen before the keys are yours.
The valuation. Your lender orders an independent valuation and lends against that figure, not the price you agreed. If the valuation lands under your contract price, your LVR rises, which can shrink the loan the lender will advance, which means finding the shortfall in cash or renegotiating with the vendor. It's the step most buyers don't see coming. Our valuations explainer covers what valuers look at and what to do when the number disappoints.
Formal approval. Pre-approval becomes unconditional approval once the lender verifies the property, your documents and the valuation. Only then is a finance clause satisfied, and only then should you feel settled about the purchase.
Conveyancing. Your conveyancer or solicitor runs title searches, checks the contract, adjusts rates and taxes between you and the seller, and books settlement. You'll do a final inspection in the last week to confirm the property matches what you bought.
Settlement itself usually lands 30 to 90 days after exchange, depending on state convention and what you negotiated. On the day, your lender hands over the balance, the title transfers, and the agent releases the keys. Most of it is invisible to you. Occasionally it isn't, and our settlement day guide explains who does what, what can go wrong and how to keep it on schedule.
What should you do this month?
Rising rates won't keep the crowd away forever. Three of the four major banks expect the cash rate has peaked, and when cuts eventually arrive, the sidelined buyers come back at once. The negotiating window is open now, and it belongs to buyers whose finance is already sorted.
This month, that means three moves. Pull your credit report and tidy your accounts. Price your true budget across lenders instead of trusting one calculator. Then get pre-approved, so the 90-day clock starts when you're ready to inspect.
Want to see what your buying power looks like, and which schemes and policies you qualify for? Start the Wity questionnaire →: free, no credit check, two minutes.