Buying Property in AustraliaFrom Los Angeles
Home loan, refinancing and investment lending advice for Australians and expats buying from Los Angeles. We’re former bankers, we compare 40+ lenders, we’re paid by the lender (not by you), and we work Los Angeles hours.
- Australian citizens in the United States face no FIRB approval and no foreign-buyer ban: the whole Australian market is open to you, established homes included, and permanent residents are generally treated the same way while they remain ordinarily resident in Australia.
- US dollars sit on the preferred currency list, so lenders commonly count 80 per cent of your net salary, and foreign overtime, allowances, commission and bonuses are now accepted in servicing at select lenders.
- Los Angeles runs seventeen hours behind Melbourne: your evening lands in Melbourne’s late morning the next day. We work your evening, not ours.
- The full journey, documents to settlement without a flight, is in our step-by-step overseas buying guide. This page covers what is specific to Los Angeles.
How lenders read US dollars
An Australian lender reading a US-dollar payslip from LA will commonly bring about 80 per cent of net salary into the assessment, USD being a fixture of the major preferred lists; whether overtime, allowances and bonuses join the count varies from lender to lender. Most lenders model the income at Australian tax scales regardless of what you actually pay stateside. Across the market, one payslip can support budgets six figures apart, so the matching decision carries real money.
Los Angeles hosts the largest Australian community in the United States, spread across entertainment, music, production, tech and aerospace, and every one of those pay packets arrives in the currency at the top of each lender’s preferred list.
The currency is the easy half. USD’s preferred-list standing means lenders commonly count 80 per cent of your net salary, and select lenders will take overtime, allowances, commission and bonuses earned abroad into servicing too, useful when part of the package rides on a production calendar. The half to plan for is shape: income that arrives per contract, per season or per credit is read differently at every credit desk, and most lenders will also model your salary at Australian tax scales even where your actual rate is lower. Each of those settings is its own reason the gap between lenders runs as wide as it does.
For a first pass on your own pay, the day’s USD rate lives at xe.com, which is what the lenders themselves check; drop it into the shading calculator on our expat guide and see what comes back. Read the result knowing one thing: hand the same LA payslip to the friendliest and the toughest lender in the market and the budgets they return are routinely six figures apart. Sorting the lender is the budget conversation itself, and it belongs before the house hunt.
LA’s Australian cohort is the most contract-shaped we deal with: production runs, studio deals, streaming gigs and startup equity sit alongside ordinary salaries, and lenders read each structure differently. The ones who handle variable and contract income well can build a strong file from exactly the pay history that makes other lenders nervous, which makes lender matching the whole game for the entertainment crowd. The dollars themselves could not be simpler: USD anchors every preferred list, and English documentation keeps the file clean.
It reruns every time you type. The 80 per cent tier and the cap of five on debt-to-income are indicative settings; where you actually land depends on tax modelling, commitments and full serviceability, and lender choice alone can move the result by six figures. Your inputs never leave the browser, are never saved and never reach us. General information only, not credit advice.
August 2026 house-median tracking for context: Sydney $1,282,020, Brisbane $1,126,149, Perth $1,050,354, Adelaide $950,703, Melbourne $812,621. About $908,800 of indicative ceiling gets past the Melbourne house median, while Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide would call for more deposit, a second income on the file or a different kind of property. All of it hangs off the worked example’s illustrative rate, though: the ceiling moves whenever the currency does, which is what the calculator above is quietly repricing as you type. Trust your own number from that calculator first, and use the full median tracker for the detail on every city.
Five years of the US dollar, in Australian dollars
Five years of Reserve Bank of Australia monthly data tell it plainly: about A$1.36 per US dollar in August 2021, A$1.54 in August 2023, A$1.53 in August 2025, about A$1.42 today. Had you converted a US$150,000 deposit at the five-year high you would hold $241,390 Australian; at the low, $198,781. Roughly $42,610 separates the two, and that difference is the whole argument for giving transfer timing the same attention as lender choice.
The current rate is always at xe.com, and one paste into the calculator above shows what it does to your borrowing power. Currency prediction is a losing script, so write a safer one: learn ahead of time what a few cents of movement means for your deposit, move big sums across in instalments rather than on one chosen morning, and keep the settlement-transfer safeguards wrapped around every transfer. Exchange-rate figures are RBA monthly averages, general information only, not financial or FX advice.
Los Angeles logistics, solved
Practicalities for Los Angeles-based buyers: the time difference of seventeen hours behind Melbourne shapes call scheduling rather than preventing it; documents follow the standard expat file of employment evidence, bank statements and recent payslips; documents are typically in English, simplifying the file; and inspections, contracts and settlement all complete remotely as covered in the step-by-step guide.
- Time zones: Los Angeles is seventeen hours behind Melbourne. Your evening lands in Melbourne’s late morning the next day, and our calendar shows slots in your local time.
- Documents: the standard expat file applies: employment contract or letter, three months of salary credits, two payslips no older than about 60 days. Payslips and contracts are typically issued in English, which keeps the document file straightforward.
- On the ground: San Diego, Silicon Beach and the whole west coast run the same USD playbook. Inspections, exchange and settlement all run remotely: the mechanics are Steps 5 and 6 of the main guide.
- Tax at the California end: California treats you as a resident if you are present in the state for other than a temporary or transitory purpose, and the Franchise Tax Board residency rules tax residents on income from all sources, so before Australian rent starts arriving while you live in Los Angeles, speak to a California tax adviser.
- The US tax treaty: The United States and Australia have an income tax treaty, listed on the IRS treaty pages, which exists to reduce double taxation on certain income, though how it applies to a Los Angeles-based owner of Australian property depends on individual circumstances.
- Official paperwork nearby: Australia maintains a consulate in Los Angeles, one of seven Australian missions in the United States listed on the Australian Embassy and Consulates page, and its notarial services are worth knowing about when settlement paperwork needs witnessed signatures or certified copies.
- The market you are buying into: premium values fell 3.2 per cent in the three months to July while clearance rates sit under 50 per cent: the case for this cycle is in our buyer’s market analysis and buy-back window piece.
In Los Angeles? Start with one email. Email ahmed@everstonefinance.com.au, the link pre-fills a short template, and we reply within a day, your time. Or book a slot that lands in your evening.
Australians elsewhere: our guides for New York, Toronto, or the full overseas playbook.
Already own in Australia? Refinance and equity release, from Los Angeles
Australians in Los Angeles who already own in Australia can refinance and release equity remotely, at select lenders, on the same shaded USD assessment as a purchase. The LA twist is the income doing the servicing: production runs, studio deals, streaming gigs and loan-out structures are read very differently from one credit team to the next, so the lender holding your loan today is not automatically the one that reads your income best now. According to Everstone Finance, Australians in Los Angeles can refinance an Australian mortgage without leaving the United States: identity is certified locally, documents are signed electronically, and settlement runs through PEXA, the electronic settlement platform for Australian property.
Contract income ages differently from a salary. A loan set up in one production cycle can drift onto a stale rate while the one to two years of consistent credits lenders actually assess would now qualify you somewhere sharper. Both fixes run remotely. On the rate, work the playbook in our negotiate-your-rate guide, reprice first, then switch if your lender will not move, and check the cashback offers currently on the market, which reward qualifying switchers. On the deposit, select lenders will release part of the growth in an Australian property to fund the next one, provided the variable income history supports both loans inside LVR caps. For the entertainment crowd the refinance file is built from exactly the pay history that makes some lenders nervous, statements, agreements and consistent credits, so matching the income shape to the credit team that reads it best comes before any application is lodged.
Frequently asked questions
Can an Australian living in Los Angeles buy property in Australia?
Yes, plainly. FIRB approval is a foreign-person requirement, and citizens of Australia are not foreign persons however long they have been in California, so nothing needs approving and established homes remain available. Permanent residents are generally treated the same way while they remain ordinarily resident in Australia, though a PR holder who has lived overseas for an extended period can be treated as a foreign person under FIRB rules and should confirm their position before signing a contract. The work that remains, lending and logistics, all runs from Los Angeles.
How much of a USD salary will an Australian lender count?
Commonly around 80 per cent of net salary, since US dollars sit on the preferred currency lists, with overtime, allowances and bonuses now accepted at select lenders. For Los Angeles contract and production earners the assessment leans on one to two years of consistent credits, and policies still differ enough between lenders to move the budget by six figures.
Do I need to fly back to Australia to buy?
No. Inspections run by video and local eyes, contracts sign electronically in most cases, and settlement completes electronically between your conveyancer and lender. From Los Angeles the west coast time difference is absorbed by an email-first process and evening slots, and the step-by-step mechanics are in our main overseas buying guide.
What documents do I need from Los Angeles?
An employment contract or employer letter, three months of bank statements showing salary credits, and two recent payslips no older than about 60 days, with extra evidence for bonus or allowance income. Los Angeles payslips and contracts are typically issued in English, which keeps the document file straightforward, and where pay flows through a loan-out company or LLC, lenders want one to two years of consistent income through the structure, evidenced cleanly.
I work in entertainment on contract and production income. Can that count?
Yes, with the right lender: contract, production and variable income is assessed on history, typically one to two years of consistent credits evidenced through statements and agreements, and some lenders average it generously while others discount it heavily. Equity compensation such as RSUs is treated separately again. Matching the income shape to the lender that reads it best is the core of the exercise.
Is Los Angeles different from New York for this process?
The lending treatment is identical, since assessment follows the currency rather than the city: US dollars on the preferred 80 per cent tier. What differs is practical: the time difference to Melbourne is three hours larger from the west coast, which our email-first process and evening slots absorb.
When should I convert my USD savings into Australian dollars?
Plainly: no one picks the day. The five-year spread above put roughly $42,610 Australian between converting a US$150,000 deposit at the high and at the low, and staging transfers is how you stop one date from carrying that much weight. Because lenders want deposit funds traceable and seasoned, the movement plan is early-process work, not a settlement-week scramble.
Production work pays me through an LLC or loan-out company. Does that complicate things?
It moves you toward self-employed assessment at some lenders and stays simple at others that read the underlying contracts: one to two years of consistent income through the structure, evidenced cleanly, keeps most doors open. The loan-out setup is common enough in LA that the right lender treats it as routine.
I already own a property in Australia. Can I refinance or release equity from Los Angeles?
Yes, at select lenders: refinancing and equity release run remotely from Los Angeles on the same shaded USD basis as a purchase, and for contract and production earners the file leans on one to two years of consistent credits, evidenced through statements and agreements. Released equity can become the next deposit, provided serviceability holds across both loans at current valuations and inside LVR caps, so map the structure with a broker before you commit.
Can I refinance my Australian investment property from Los Angeles if it is rented out?
Yes, in most cases. The rent from the Australian property is assessed alongside your USD salary, and an investment loan that has sat untouched for years is often the first candidate for review. Everything runs remotely on the assessment described on this page, and a property you already own needs no FIRB approval to refinance.
Los Angeles to Melbourne is one conversation. Start it tonight, your time.
Your USD salary through the right lender’s eyes, your real budget in both currencies, and the whole purchase run remotely by former bankers. No cost, no obligation.
Book a chat with a former bankerThe people behind Everstone
You’re trusting someone with one of the biggest financial decisions you’ll make. Here’s who you’ll actually be working with.
Ahmed Lotfi
A former major-bank lender who now works entirely for you. Ahmed handles structuring, refinancing and investment lending across the 40+ lender panel.
Zappelin Heng
Co-founder with deep lender experience, focused on getting complex and self-employed files assessed on their real strength, not a tick-box.
About the author. Ahmed Lotfi is co-founder of Everstone Finance and a former banker who now works as a mortgage and finance broker in South Yarra, Melbourne, arranging home, investment and commercial lending for Australians at home and abroad. Everstone Finance operates under the Best Interests Duty as Credit Representative 574314 of LMG Broker Services Pty Ltd, Australian Credit Licence 517921.