Buying property

We're absolutely open for business for confident first home buyers making their first exciting purchase.

Quick heads up, although we’ll help you get a kick ass home loan, we currently don’t do the paperwork for First Home Owner Grants. Your solicitor or conveyancer will be able to help with these. As we build out our offering we'll have more guidance and tools over time, but for now you can rest assured you'll be setting yourself up with a red-hot home loan!

Find out if you’re eligible for a First Home Owner Grant.

Sorry as a new lender, we are more conservative and currently don’t lend to off the plan properties while they are under construction.

Once your property is built and financed, we'd love you to refinance it over to us!

You could borrow up to 80% of your property’s value.

You can check this super quickly by getting a personalised quick quote here. Your quick quote will let you know how much you could borrow specific to your location and situation. It’ll also show how much your loan repayments could be and the purchase price you could bid or offer. You won’t get credit checked for the quote and it takes less than 5 mins.

The maximum amount you could borrow is determined by your financial situation which we assess to see if it meets our affordability requirements. We look at things like your income, your expenses, savings and credit history.

We’ll also need to look at your spending habits and any existing commitments such as credit cards, personal loans and car loans. As part of our responsible lending criteria, we also apply a few rainy-day scenarios such as interest rates rising, RBA cash rates going up or contingent income, like bonuses, not being paid.

You generally need a 20% deposit to take out an Athena home loan. In certain cases we require a 30% deposit depending on where your property is, what type it is, or if it is valued at over $2.5 million.

To see how much you need in the area you’re looking to buy in, get a quick quote in under 5 mins with no credit checks.

You can use a cash gift for your deposit but sorry, we currently don’t take guarantor deposits.

If you would like to use a cash gift for your deposit, our Credit Assessors will ask for documentation in the form of a gift letter after you submit your application. They’ll help you with the wording so no need to stress over this.

Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI) protects the lender in the event the borrower cannot afford to meet their home loan repayments and typically applies when you borrow more than 80% of the property’s value. It is a one-off payment paid by the borrower to the lender.

When you have a smaller deposit, the lender takes on more risk because they have less safety buffer against your loan. Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI) does not apply to any Athena home loan as we require you to have a minimum deposit of 20%, and in certain cases 30% deposit, for your home loan.

Every lender has different lending policy and criteria. This means you may be able to borrow less or more with Athena compared to other lenders. This would be based off LVR requirements, every lender will stress test your scenario differently.

There is so much lingo when it comes to approvals and every lender seems to have a different meaning for it. Let’s clear the air. Here’s what it means for Athena.

Pre-approval -  This is also known as conditional approval or approval in principal. This is not final approval, but it gives you an estimate of how much you could borrow for a home loan. It means you can shop around for your dream property with more confidence. It lasts for 90 days and after this period, we’ll need you to re-submit a few documents to ensure we have the latest information for the pre-approval to remain valid.

Unconditional approval – This is the final approval that confirms we can offer you a home loan for your property, no strings attached! It lasts for 90 days and all you need to do is sign the required documents. Once the documents are signed, you’ll have 90 days to settle. If it’s been more than 180 days since you received unconditional approval from us, you’ll need to submit a new application as we are required to run a complete assessment again.

On average, pre-approval generally takes a week, provided we have received all required information. It could take shorter or longer depending on your scenario, but we will always keep you in the loop.

It depends on if we’ve got all the right information to make the assessment. On average it takes about 2 weeks from when you submit the application to unconditional approval.

It could take shorter or longer depending on your scenario but we will always keep you in the loop.

The settlement period will start from the day the contract of sale for the property is signed by both you and the seller. It ends on the settlement day stated in the contract and this is typically 30 to 90 days from the beginning of settlement period.

Generally the period is 6 weeks but can vary depending on which State the property is located or if you negotiated on the settlement day with the seller. On settlement day, the last few legal bits are finalised and you become the legal owner of your property!

We don’t charge fees! It’s true, we really don’t – no application or valuation fees, no annual or monthly fees, no exit fees on our Straight Up or Power Up home loans. Seriously WTF, Where’s The Fees? There are no Athena fees.

If you’re buying property, there are upfront costs charged by the Government and third-parties that you will need to consider. These can include stamp duty, transfer fees, mortgage registration fees, legal fees, pest and building inspections fees, and home, building and contents insurance. Upfront costs will vary depending on your situation.

Check to see what indicative upfront costs you might be up for with your personalised quick quote. It’ll only take a couple of minutes with no credit checks.

If you want to access the equity from your current property to buy another property, we can help. In the online application form, we’ll ask if you’re using any equity from a property you own as part of your deposit.

Check yes and one of our Loan Experts will discuss this with you after you submit an application.

Track the status of your application through Home Hub. You’ll have access to this as part of the application process.