The National Housing Finance And Investment Corporation (NHFIC) has announced its full panel of lenders who’ll be offering the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme.
Commonwealth Bank (CBA) joins National Australia Bank (NAB) as the second major participating bank in the government scheme along with 25 other smaller lenders.
CBA and NAB will only be authorised to write a combined 5,000 guaranteed loans out of the 10,000 available in the first year, with the rest going to smaller lenders.
As a point of note, both NAB and CBA will be offering guaranteed loans starting from 1 January 2020, while the 25 non-major lenders will begin offering home loans under the scheme from 1 February 2020.
Who are the participating lenders under the scheme?
Along with the two majors, the 25 other smaller lenders participating in the scheme are:
- Australian Military Bank
- Auswide Bank
- Bank Australia
- Bank First (formerly known as Victoria Teachers Mutual Bank)
- Bank of us (Tasmanian customer owned bank)
- Bendigo Bank
- Beyond Bank Australia
- Community First Credit Union
- Credit Union Australia (CUA)
- Defence Bank
- Gateway Bank
- G&C Mutual Bank
- Indigenous Business Australia
- Mortgageport
- MyState Bank
- People’s Choice Credit Union
- Police Bank (including the Border Bank and Bank of Heritage Isle)
- P&N Bank
- QBANK
- Queensland Country Credit Union
- Regional Australia Bank
- Sydney Mutual Bank and Endeavour Mutual Bank (divisions of Australian Mutual Bank Ltd)
- Teachers Mutual Bank Limited (including Firefighters Mutual Bank, Health Professionals Bank, Teachers Mutual Bank and UniBank)
- The Mutual Bank
- WAW Credit Union
The scheme will start on 1 January 2020.
Is there a waitlist for first home buyers wanting to apply?
Applications for the scheme are not yet open, and there’s no waitlist for first home buyers wanting to apply.
Since NHFIC will not be accepting applications directly, all applications will have to be submitted directly with the participating panel of lenders and their brokers.
Fortunately, eligible first home buyers under the scheme will enjoy the same interest rates as equivalent customers outside of the scheme.
What can you do to prepare?
We’re expecting a rush come January, so what can you do to prepare?
For starters:
- Go through the qualifying criteria and find out if you qualify.
- Get your application pre-assessed by our mortgage brokers.
- Go through our ‘home loan application document checklist’ and get all your documents ready.
For a full assessment, please give us a call on 1300 889 743 or fill in our short assessment form.