Home Loans for Nurses in Australia: No LMI up to 90%
Financial Services Expert
“Nine times out of ten, the nurse who thinks they do not qualify actually does. They are looking at their base salary; the lender that will approve them is looking at that base plus the nights and the weekends. Same payslips, two completely different answers. Before you accept anyone’s no, get someone to read your roster the way a lender does.”
Mansour Soltani – Director Soren Financial
Last updated: August 2026. Reviewed by the Soren Financial broker team.
If you are a registered nurse or midwife, a group of lenders will let you buy with a 10% deposit and waive Lender’s Mortgage Insurance entirely. On an $800,000 purchase that is roughly $32,000 you keep instead of adding to your loan.
The catch is not the deposit. It is the income test. Most lenders offering the nurse waiver want to see around $90,000 a year, and a lot of nurses look at their base salary, assume they fall short, and never ask. That is usually the wrong conclusion — because of how your shift allowances are counted. That is what this page is really about.
Not sure whether you would clear the threshold? Answer a few quick questions and see which medico home loan options could suit you.
What are home loans for nurses?
Home loans for nurses are not a separate product. They are ordinary home loans where the lender waives Lender’s Mortgage Insurance because of your profession. Same interest rates, same offset account, same redraw, same everything. What changes is the policy applied to your AHPRA registration — not the loan itself.
Lenders do this because the numbers support it. Nursing income is stable, employment is close to guaranteed, and defaults in the profession are rare. Waiving the insurance costs them very little risk and wins them a client who tends to stay for decades.
How much can a nurse borrow without LMI?
Registered nurses and midwives generally reach 90% of the property value with no LMI — a 10% deposit. That is one step below doctors, dentists and specialists, who can usually get to 95%.
You will see pages online claiming nurses can hit 95%. Treat that carefully. A handful of lenders will stretch there in specific circumstances, but 90% is the realistic planning number for a registered nurse, and budgeting on 95% is how people end up short at contract time.
The income threshold nobody mentions
This is the part most pages about home loans for nurses leave out. Where doctors and specialists typically face no minimum income, nurses usually do. At the lenders that publish a figure, it sits at around $90,000 a year.
A lot of registered nurses have a base salary below that. If you stop reading there, you walk away from a $30,000 saving you were probably entitled to. Which brings us to the part that actually decides these applications.
Your allowances and overtime are the whole game
Nursing income is not one number. It is a base salary plus penalty rates, night and weekend loading, on-call, and overtime. For a nurse working a rotating roster, that supplementary income is often $15,000 to $25,000 a year on top of base.
Whether that income counts is entirely up to the lender, and they do not agree with each other. Broadly, there are three camps:
- Counts 100% of allowances and overtime. Some lenders explicitly assess the full amount for healthcare workers. A nurse on a $78,000 base plus $18,000 in penalties is assessed on $96,000 — over the threshold, waiver approved.
- Counts a discounted share. Others take 80% of overtime, or count allowances but not overtime. The same nurse might be assessed at $88,000 and miss out by $2,000.
- Ignores it almost entirely. A few assess base salary only. The same nurse is assessed at $78,000 and is declined.
Same person, same payslips, same week — three different answers. This is why going straight to your own bank is the single most expensive habit in this whole process. If their policy happens to be the third one, you get a no, and most people take that no as the final word on their situation.
Matching your roster and your payslips to a lender whose policy actually reads them properly is most of what we do here.
What the waiver is worth in real money
LMI runs between roughly 1% and 5% of the loan, and it rises sharply as your deposit shrinks. Here is what a nurse avoids at a 10% deposit:
| Property value | Deposit | Approx. LMI avoided |
|---|---|---|
| $600,000 | 10% | ~$22,800 |
| $700,000 | 10% | ~$26,700 |
| $800,000 | 10% | ~$31,900 |
| $900,000 | 10% | ~$36,000 |
Estimates based on a major lender’s published LMI calculator; every lender calculates it differently. Remember that LMI is normally added to your loan rather than paid upfront, so you also avoid thirty years of interest on top of the premium itself. On an $800,000 purchase the true saving is well north of the $31,900 headline.
Who qualifies
You will generally need to be:
- Registered with AHPRA through the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia
- Working as a registered nurse, registered midwife or nurse practitioner
- Earning above the lender’s income threshold, once allowances are counted properly
Enrolled nurses and assistants in nursing sit outside most waiver policies, though not all — it is worth asking rather than assuming. Nurse practitioners often qualify on better terms than a standard RN. And if you are agency or casual, your income can still be assessed; lenders usually want to see a consistent pattern over six to twelve months.
If you work elsewhere in healthcare, our guide to medical professional home loans covers pharmacists, vets, physiotherapists and allied health. Doctors, dentists and specialists should start at home loans for doctors, where the limits are higher.
What you’ll need
Less than people expect. Proof of your AHPRA registration, recent payslips — ideally enough of them to show a full roster cycle including your penalties and overtime — photo ID, and a summary of your deposit and any current debts. If you have a HECS balance, bring the figure; it affects borrowing capacity more than most people realise.
You can get a free report on where you stand before we speak, so the first call is about options rather than admin.
Want a sense of the numbers first? It takes about two minutes.
How the process works
1. Work out how your income actually reads. We look at your payslips the way a lender will, and identify which lenders count your allowances and overtime in full. This step decides most outcomes.
2. Match your role to the lenders that waive for nurses. Each lender keeps its own list of eligible registration categories and its own income threshold.
3. Get pre-approval before you make offers. This confirms the lender has accepted your profession as eligible and gives you a firm number to bid to.
4. Make your offer, then move to formal approval. With no mortgage insurer involved there is one fewer party to satisfy, which is often why these applications move faster.
5. Review the structure after settlement. Worth checking the rate, offset and repayment type still suit you, particularly if an investment purchase is on the horizon.
First home buyer? You may have two routes
Nurses buying a first home can sometimes choose between the profession-based LMI waiver and the federal First Home Guarantee, which lets you buy with a 5% deposit and no LMI. They are not always interchangeable — the guarantee has property price caps and limited places, while the waiver has neither but needs a 10% deposit.
Which one is better depends on your deposit, the price bracket you are buying in, and how quickly you want to move. It is worth comparing both rather than assuming the scheme is automatically the better deal. Our post on avoiding Lender’s Mortgage Insurance covers the other routes as well.
Why use a Soren Financial broker?
We compare more than 50 lenders, and the policies that decide home loans for nurses — which occupations qualify, what income threshold applies, how overtime is treated — change without notice and are not published in any one place. Our job is to find the lender whose rules actually fit your roster and your registration, then carry the application through to settlement so you are not chasing paperwork between shifts. If you would rather know who you are dealing with first, have a look at the team behind Soren.
FAQs
Can nurses get a home loan with no LMI?
Yes. Select lenders waive LMI for registered nurses and midwives borrowing up to 90% of the property value, so a 10% deposit means no LMI premium.
How much deposit does a nurse need?
As little as 10% at lenders offering the nurse waiver, against the 20% a standard borrower needs to avoid LMI.
Is there a minimum income for the nurse LMI waiver?
Usually yes — around $90,000 a year at lenders that publish a threshold. Whether you meet it often depends on whether the lender counts your shift allowances and overtime, and lenders differ significantly on that point.
Do my penalty rates and overtime count as income?
At some lenders, in full. At others, only partly, or not at all. This single policy difference decides a large share of nurse applications, which is why the choice of lender matters more than the size of your deposit.
Do enrolled nurses qualify?
Most waiver policies are written around registered nurses, registered midwives and nurse practitioners. Enrolled nurses fall outside them at the majority of lenders, though a small number take a broader view. Worth asking rather than assuming.
Can I use the waiver on an investment property?
Sometimes. Several lenders extend the LMI waiver to investment loans for healthcare professionals, though the maximum LVR is often lower than for an owner-occupied purchase.
Are the interest rates higher on home loans for nurses?
No. It is a standard home loan, sometimes on professional-package rates. The waiver removes the LMI cost without adding anything to the rate.
Does it apply outside Sydney?
Yes. The waiver sits in lender policy and applies nationally. What can change is the property — some lenders reduce the maximum LVR in postcodes they treat as higher risk. That is about the property, not about you, and it is worth checking before you make an offer.
I was declined by my own bank. Is that the end of it?
No, and this happens constantly. A decline usually reflects that one lender’s policy on your registration category or your overtime, not your actual borrowing position. It is regularly worth a second look elsewhere.
This information is general and does not take your personal circumstances into account. Eligibility, rates and LMI waivers are set by individual lenders and can change.
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