$95,000 on your payslip. $250,000 written into your training pathway. Most lenders read only the first number, and that gap costs junior doctors and registrars hundreds of thousands of dollars in borrowing power. A future income home loan closes it: under the medico policy available through Wity, doctors and dentists can borrow against where their career is heading, not just what this fortnight's payslip says.
Timing matters more than usual. The RBA lifted the cash rate three times in 2026 (February, March and May), held it at 4.35% in June, and meets again on Tuesday 11 August 2026. Either way, rising rates have thinned the buyer crowd. Auction clearance rates are running in the low 40s, which hands prepared buyers negotiating power they didn't have a year ago. If a lender has already told you "not yet", this is the window to change that answer.
What is a future income home loan for doctors?
A future income home loan is assessed on your evidenced career trajectory rather than your current salary alone. Standard serviceability works off what you earn today. This policy works off what your accredited training program says you'll earn: award escalation each training year, registrar progression, and the consultant or specialist role at the end of it.
It isn't available to everyone. Future income acceptance sits inside the Doctors & Dentists tier of the specialist lending policy available through Wity, which also allows borrowing up to 95% of a property's value with no LMI, a 5% deposit, and loan terms up to 35 years. Nurses, midwives and allied health professionals have their own tier (up to 90% with no LMI), and the floor for any borrower is 85%. Future income itself is reserved for doctors and dentists, because a medical training pathway is documented, regulated and about as close to certain as income gets.
Follow the chain through. Assessment on trajectory means a registrar's capacity stops being anchored to a training-year salary. That can mean buying three to five years earlier than a standard assessment allows. Earlier purchase means earlier equity, and in a market where Brisbane's median hit $1.118 million after rising 17.4% in the year to June 2026 (Cotality), those years are expensive to sit out. The practical step: find out what your trajectory is worth before you settle for a smaller property or a longer wait. The wider tier is covered in our doctor home loan guide and on the Doctors & Dentists home loans page.
Why does your payslip undersell you?
Serviceability maths was built for static careers. A lender takes your current income, tests it at your actual rate plus APRA's 3% buffer, subtracts HECS repayments and living costs, and produces a number. Borrowing capacity is that number. For most borrowers it's a fair snapshot. For a registrar, it's a photograph of the worst-paid decade-opener of a forty-year career.
Two changes in 2026 sharpened the squeeze. APRA held the 3% buffer at its 28 May 2026 review, so applications are still tested well above the rate you'd pay. And since 1 February 2026, APRA's debt-to-income caps limit how many new loans lenders can write at six times income or more. High-multiple lending is now rationed, so lenders reserve those spots for applications with the strongest evidence. Documented trajectory wins them. Hopeful projections don't.
You've been told your training years are a lending weakness. They're the opposite. An accredited medical training program is one of the most predictable income escalators in the country, with pay rises written into state awards rather than promised at a performance review. We've seen credit assessors put more weight on a signed training contract than on a decade of payslips from a volatile industry, for exactly that reason.
HECS compounds the problem at most lenders. A typical $80,000 medical HECS balance can strip $80,000 to $120,000 from your capacity under standard calculations, which is why so many junior doctors get quoted numbers that feel absurdly low. Under the Doctors & Dentists tier, HECS is excluded from the calculation entirely. The full mechanics are in our HECS and borrowing power explainer.
How much difference does future income make?
Meet Dr Ava Chen, a second-year anaesthetic registrar in Brisbane's public hospital system. She earns $95,000 base, carries $80,000 in HECS, and has her eye on an $850,000 townhouse in Kelvin Grove, inner Brisbane. Her accredited training program leads to a consultant role paying $250,000+.
| Standard bank assessment | Doctors & Dentists policy through Wity | |
|---|---|---|
| Income assessed | $95,000 current base | Career progression evidence toward $250,000+ |
| $80,000 HECS | Included: roughly $100,000 off capacity | Excluded entirely |
| Indicative capacity | Around $500,000 | Materially higher; could support the $850,000 purchase |
| Deposit to avoid LMI | Most lenders want 80% LVR or below: $170,000 | 5% deposit: $42,500, no LMI at up to 95% LVR |
| Maximum term | 30 years | Up to 35 years |
On the standard path, Ava's roughly $500,000 capacity puts the townhouse out of reach. She keeps renting, saves toward a $170,000 deposit, and watches a market that added double digits in a year. On the future income path, her evidenced pathway and excluded HECS could support the purchase now, with $42,500 down and no LMI. The gap between those two positions isn't a rate. It's years of equity.
There's a second lever inside the same tier. A 35-year term trims repayments by roughly $308 a month on an $800,000 loan compared with a 30-year term: breathing room that matters while you're still on a registrar salary, rotating through regional placements, or waiting on the fellowship pay jump.
Based on typical scenarios. Individual outcomes vary.
What evidence do lenders want to see?
Future income isn't taken on trust. The application stands or falls on documents:
- Current AHPRA registration. The non-negotiable baseline.
- Proof of your accredited training program. College enrolment confirmation or a signed training contract.
- Your employment contract, showing award classification and the escalation steps ahead of you.
- Pathway evidence for senior trainees. Fellowship timelines, confirmed rotations, or a consultant appointment letter where one exists; specialists approaching fellowship often have the strongest files of all.
Presentation matters as much as paperwork. An assessor who has to reconstruct your pathway from scattered PDFs is an assessor looking for reasons to say no. The Wity Borrowing Power Assessment models your capacity across 45+ lenders with your trajectory evidence structured the way credit teams want to read it, so you see your real number rather than one bank's calculator output. For interns and registrars, that modelling is often the difference between "come back when you're a consultant" and a realistic purchase plan this year.
What should you do before the RBA meets again?
Three moves this month. Pull your documents together: AHPRA registration, training contract, two recent payslips. Get your capacity modelled on trajectory, not just salary.
Want to see what your career pathway is worth to a lender? Start the Wity questionnaire → Free, no credit check, two minutes.
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