Case Study · First Home Buyers · September 2026
From a New Business to a First Home in Five Weeks
Jacob and Marie came to us wanting to buy their first home on the Central Coast. They'd done everything right: kept a tight budget and built up steady savings for their deposit and stamp duty. On paper, they looked ready. One detail complicated things — Jacob had started his own business just seven months earlier.
The problem: not enough trading history
Most lenders want to see 18 to 24 months of self-employment income before they'll assess a business owner on their business financials. At seven months, Jacob was a long way short of that. Assessed the standard way, his options would have narrowed to specialist lenders charging a noticeably higher rate to offset the perceived risk — a real cost over the life of the loan.
The path we found
We knew one of the big four banks had a niche policy for exactly this situation: where a director can show their business has paid them a regular salary for at least six months, the bank will assess them as a PAYG employee against that salary, rather than under its standard self-employed policy. Jacob's business had been paying him consistently since it started, so he met the bar.
That single policy match changed the outcome. Instead of a specialist-lender rate, Jacob and Marie were assessed on Jacob's regular salary like any other PAYG applicant and approved at a competitive mainstream interest rate.
The result
Jacob and Marie were approved, purchased, and moved into their first home within five weeks of first getting in touch — with a rate that reflected their actual financial position, not a generic self-employed loading.
What this means if you're newly self-employed
- Trading history requirements vary a lot between lenders — 18-24 months is common, but it's not universal.
- A regular salary paid by your own company can sometimes let a lender assess you as PAYG, if you can evidence it.
- The right lender match matters as much as your deposit — the difference here was policy fit, not a bigger deposit or a longer wait.
Names and identifying details have been changed to protect client privacy; used with the client's permission as an illustrative example only. Lending policies and rates vary between lenders and change over time — this is general information, not a guarantee of the outcome for any individual circumstance, and does not take your personal objectives, financial situation or needs into account.