Frequently asked questions

We understand that for most of us, home ownership can be a major accomplishment in life, given it takes both effort and sacrifice. You may be on the path to owning your first home, looking to refinance to get a better experience or buying an investment property. Yard wants to help you in fulfilling your dream.

We provide a drastically simplified, transparent and personalised online mortgage experience supported by our exceptional customer support.

As a Yard customer, you can expect:

• Competitive loan rates
• A simple online application process
• A team that provides you support throughout the whole process

You may be eligible to get a home loan from Yard if you

• Are at least 18 years old
• Receive a salary from an employer or you are self-employed
• Are purchasing or refinancing a property that we can lend against.

Yes, we know that people may buy property on their own or with somebody else. We welcome an application from you, if you are applying on your own, or if you have somebody else that you will be applying with.

At Yard, self-employed borrowers typically need to provide:

• The most recent financial year Personal Tax Return and corresponding ATO Tax Assessment notice
• The most recent financial year Company Tax Return and Business Financials if you are running your business through a company. 

If you do not have your tax returns ready, Yard also has options for alternative income verification through an accountant letter and Business Activity Statements or bank statements.

Yes, Yard can provide home loans to non-resident borrowers. This includes:

• Customers who are not an Australian citizen or permanent resident living in Australia, or
• Customers who are an Australian citizen and are earning income outside of Australia.

We verify your identity online. Yard will send you a SMS to complete your Verification of Identity using your mobile phone. You need to take photos of your ID documents – we typically require a Drivers Licence and a passport. If you do not have these available, there is a list of alternative documents we can use. Then you smile for the camera, and it is all done!

The minimum loan size you can apply for is $150,000, whilst the maximum loan size is $5 million.

The Loan to Value Ratio (LVR) is the loan amount as a percentage of the value of your property. To calculate it, you simply divide the loan amount by your property’s value.

Yard can provide loans for up to 80% of a property’s value without Lenders Mortgage Insurance. For example, if a property has a value of $1 million, Yard may lend you up to $800,000. Yard can lend up to 95% of the property’s value with Lenders Mortgage Insurance.

Yard offers Family Pledge and Family Guarantee home loans. First home buyers can make up for the fact that they do not have sufficient savings for a deposit by using the equity in a family member’s home as a security. The family member guarantee is typically limited to 20% of the purchase price of the new property to avoid the need for the borrower to pay Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI). You can use a Family Guarantee to purchase your own home or an investment property.

We can lend you funds for a period between 2 and 30 years.

Having an offset account provides you with a sub-account that works like a transactional account. You can access funds held in the account electronically via internet banking.

The other big benefit that you get through an offset account is that you can reduce your interest amount - your loan principal gets reduced by the amount of money you hold in your offset account. For example, if your variable rate loan is $250,000 and you have $5,000 in your offset account, then interest for that month is calculated on $245,000.

Yard does not provide an offset account against fixed rate loans. We can split your loan and have your offset loaded against your variable rate allowing you to reduce interest costs on the variable part of your home loan.

Yes, our offset account can come with an optional Debit Card that’s linked to your offset account.

We offer variable and fixed interest rates on our home loans. We provide 1, 2, 3 and 5-year fixed rate loans. You also are able to split your home loan into multiple loan accounts that attract different interest rates.

When personalising your product, you may select to repay principal and interest from the start or apply to have a limited period making just interest repayments. Our maximum interest only period is 5 years.

When you’re making ‘interest only’ payments on your loan, you’re only paying an interest amount (you’re not repaying the loan principal). Interest only periods are usually available for a limited time, because at some point you need to start repaying your loan. When you do end up moving to principal and interest repayments, your repayment amount will become higher.

Selecting interest only repayments may increase the total amount of interest you pay over the life of your loan. The reason is that when you’re in an interest only period, you’re not repaying any principal, but you keep accruing interest.

Yard allows you to select to make interest only repayments for a up to 5 years. At the end of this period, you have to commence making both principal and interest repayments.

Potential reasons for selecting ‘interest only’ repayments include:

• Some customers may prefer interest only if they are buying an investment property or a home that may become an investment property down the track
• It might be possible to claim interest that’s paid as a tax deduction, if you are buying a residential investment property that’s earning rent (income).

You shouldn’t select interest only repayments solely to have a smaller repayment amount. Interest only periods are usually available for only a limited time and they may increase the total amount of interest you pay over the life of your loan.

Before selecting between interest only or principal and interest repayments, we recommend you seek personalised tax and financial advice from a specialist for your individual situation.

Potential reasons for selecting ‘principal and interest’ repayments include:

• You will be repaying your loan principal with each repayment
• You could pay less interest over the life of your loan, as your principal balance goes down.

Yard usually offers lower interest rates for principal and interest repayments, compared to when you make interest only repayments, for the same loan.

There are many factors that go into determining your interest rate. Your credit history, loan purpose, loan size, geographical location and employment type can all impact your interest rate. We have made it easy to get an initial indication of what your interest rate could be on Our Rates page.

A comparison rate is a rate that helps you outline the total cost of a loan. It is a single percentage figure that combines the loan interest rate plus selected fees and charges. The comparison rate allows you to compare loans from different home loan lenders to understand how much it will truly cost you.

Yes, you can setup automatic loan repayments. We will require you to nominate an account so we can periodically debit on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis. The periodic debit can be linked to either your Yard offset account or another bank account.

No, if you select a residential variable interest rate loan, you get the flexibility to pay off your loan as fast as you want! You may make repayments above and beyond your obligated amount or alternatively, request an offset account, and build up monies that will be offset against your loan within your offset account.

On a fixed interest rate loan, we allow you to pay an additional $20,000 a year.

Paying off your loan faster than you need to means you pay less interest over the life of your loan contract.

Fees associated with establishing and servicing your loan will be outlined in your loan contract. Typically these fees include:

• Valuation Fee – applied at cost
• Settlement Fee – $150
• Legal Fee – applied at cost
• Offset account fee (if you select to have one) – $120 per annum.

Different terms & conditions and fees apply across loan products.

Yes, there is a $500 discharge fee plus lender legal fees as we need to do some work to discharge your loan.

Different terms & conditions and fees apply to SMSF and commercial loan products.

If you want to pay down your fixed rate loan and move it to variable rate or discharge the loan before the end of the fixed rate period, there might be an early repayment fee for fixed rate loans.

There are a number of factors that influence the early repayment fee. These include interest rate in the wholesale market (including the rate at the date of the establishment of the fixed rate loan and the early repayment date), the loan size and time remaining on the loan.

A Target Market Determination (TMD) is a document that describes how a product is appropriate for a target market and any conditions around how the product can be distributed to customers.

The purpose of TMDs is to ensure that Yard has a customer-centric approach to designing and distributing our financial products. This is essential to ensure that our products meet consumers objectives, their financial situation and needs. TMDs also describe the events or circumstances where we may need to review the Target Market Determination for a product.

We are required to have and publish Target Market Determinations for our products as per the Treasuring Laws Amendment (Design and Distribution Obligations and Product Intervention Power) Act 2021.

We can help you with buying:

• Houses, apartments and townhouses
• Vacant land
• House and land packages
• Rural residential and hobby farms.
• Commercial property (see full list of acceptable property types here)

Stamp duty is a state tax on all property purchases, based on the property price and location. Each state and territory government charges different amounts of stamp duty tax, however, it is a one-off payment that you need to factor into your budget for your property purchase.

Some governments might also call stamp duty ‘transfer duty’ or ‘general duty’.

Buying a home is a big deal and using a conveyancer or solicitor helps you understand and meet all legal requirements. They take care of a lot of the documentation and can provide you with advice about the process, and explain the terms and conditions of the contract.

Do your research before hiring a solicitor or a conveyancer. Potentially, ask your family and friends if they can recommend someone they've used before and make sure you understand the fees they charge for the services you require.

If you have found the property that you’re looking to buy, it can be a good idea to get a qualified building inspector to assess it for structural integrity, safe electrical fittings and future maintenance costs. You may also wish to get a pest inspection done to ensure the property doesn't have any pest issues, such as termites.

Professional inspectors conduct checks that can offer you peace of mind and might even save you money in the future.

Home insurance covers the cost of rebuilding or repairing your home. You must have an active home insurance policy at all times when you have a Yard loan with our lender interest noted on the policy. If your property is part of a strata then your strata would have a building insurance for all property part of the strata.

If you’re going to be living in your home, you may decide to also combine contents insurance into a single policy with your home insurance to protect your possessions if they are stolen, damaged or lost.

If you’re going to find somebody to rent your home, you may wish to consider landlord insurance. Having a landlord insurance policy provides you with protection if your tenant damages your home or moves out without paying the rent that they owe you. The cost of landlord insurance may be tax deductible.

BankStatements.com.au are an Australian company that offer a secure, fast, digital way for you to share your bank statements with us. They download the bank statement for us and attach it to your application.

Many lenders will require you to go into your internet banking, print off your bank statements and attach them to a paper form. We use BankStatements.com.au as our service provider because we want to be paperless and it makes the application process more convenient.

BankStatements.com.au is an efficiency solution designed to provide easy, fast and secure access to reliable and accurate bank account transaction analysis.

Security is the highest priority for Bankstatements.com.au. All data sent to their server is encrypted with 256-bit encryption, secured by 2048-bit keys. This is the same level of encryption that banks use. Your customer's login credentials are never stored and the service is a one-time retrieval – it only happens with your authorisation. You can read more details about BankStatements.com.au’s security measures.