Mortgage Broker Melbourne: Former Bankers in South Yarra, 40+ Lenders

Melbourne is Everstone’s home city, and a Melbourne mortgage broker in 2026 is working in the cheapest of the big three capitals by a wide margin: Cotality has Melbourne dwelling values at $780,550 as at 30 September 2026, against $1,198,596 in Sydney and $1,048,880 in Brisbane, after falls of 0.7% in September, 3.4% over the quarter and 6.2% over the year. That gap is why Victoria writes more first home buyer loans than any other state, why Sydney buyers and returning expats are doing the arithmetic on Melbourne, and why a Melbourne refinance needs a valuation check first. This page is written by former major-bank lenders who price the same file across more than 40 lenders, in person in South Yarra or by video.

Why choose Everstone as your mortgage broker in Melbourne

Start with who reads your file. At Everstone it is Ahmed Lotfi or Zappelin Heng, the founders, former major-bank lenders who spent years on the credit side of the desk and now work from 35 Malcolm Street, South Yarra. That matters in a soft Melbourne market, where the approval turns on valuation, serviceability and policy fit rather than on the advertised rate, and where knowing how each lender actually applies its policy is the whole skill.

Three more reasons Melbourne borrowers choose us as their mortgage broker. First, the panel: more than 40 lenders, so a first home buyer at the $780,550 median, a Toorak refinance and a Geelong investor are each priced across the whole market, not one branch’s list. Second, the cost: we are paid by the lender on settlement, out of the lender’s own margin, and you are quoted off the same rate card as a branch customer, so the service is free to you. Third, the format: a face-to-face appointment in South Yarra, or the same meeting by video or phone, with documents as PDFs and settlement electronic through PEXA. We work in English, Arabic and French, and Everstone is rated 5.0 on Google from 14 reviews (October 2026). For a first home buyer, a refinancer, an investor, a buyer from Sydney or overseas, or a nurse, teacher, accountant or dentist a lender prices differently, a Melbourne mortgage broker who has sat on the other side of the desk can change the outcome.

How it works: four steps with a Melbourne mortgage broker

1. Book a call. A free appointment in South Yarra, by video or by phone, covering your income, your deposit or equity, the property or the loan you already have, and what you need the loan to do.
2. Send the documents. Payslips, statements and identification go by email as PDFs, and identity is verified by video or at an Australia Post outlet, so nothing has to be posted or dropped in.
3. Lender selection and pre-approval. We check the valuation and serviceability first, price the file across more than 40 lenders, then lodge with the lender whose policy fits and take it to pre-approval.
4. Settlement. Settlement in Victoria is electronic through PEXA, and we stay on the file until the funds move.

What being the cheapest of the big three capitals does to a Melbourne loan

On Cotality’s Home Value Index at 30 September 2026 Melbourne sits sixth of eight capitals: Sydney $1,198,596, Brisbane $1,048,880, Perth $975,022, Adelaide $928,560, Canberra $861,744, Melbourne $780,550, Hobart $741,496, Darwin $633,431. Over the year Melbourne fell 6.2% while Darwin rose 11.9%, Perth 10.1%, Hobart 7.0%, Adelaide 6.5% and Brisbane 5.9%. That is the single most important fact about borrowing here, and it cuts three ways.

The deposit goes further. A 20% deposit at the Melbourne median is $156,110, against $209,776 in Brisbane and $239,719 in Sydney, and the 80% loan that follows, $624,440, is a very different serviceability conversation from the $958,877 a Sydney buyer must carry.

Valuations still lag contracts. Melbourne fell 0.7% in September against Sydney’s 1.4%, but a valuer prices your purchase against recent comparable sales, and when the index drops every month those comparables are stale on the day you sign. Nationally 97% of capital city suburbs fell over the three months to September and advertised stock across the capitals is 23.1% higher than a year ago. We find out before the auction which lenders will accept a desktop valuation on that property type and which will insist on a full inspection.

The rate is not doing the work. The RBA cash rate has been 4.60% since 30 September 2026, after four rises this year. The forecasts on our Melbourne property market forecast for 2027 page, all written before the September rise, have Domain expecting Melbourne house prices to fall 4 to 8% over the year to June 2027, the deepest forecast fall of any capital, and ANZ Research pairing Melbourne with Sydney to lead the recovery once rates fall in 2027. Those are their views, not ours. A loan written today has to work at today’s rate with your own buffer in it.

First home buyers: Victoria’s second chance, in numbers

Victoria writes more first home buyer loans than any state, and the margin is not close. The ABS Lending Indicators for the June quarter 2026 count 9,407 new owner occupier first home buyer loan commitments in Victoria, seasonally adjusted, against 6,937 in New South Wales, 5,646 in Queensland and 3,554 in Western Australia: 32% of the national 29,319, worth $5.31 billion. The State Revenue Office’s count from the duty side agrees: 42,208 first home buyer duty concession payments in 2024-25, worth $825.6 million, 32,564 of them metropolitan. The reason is that Victoria’s thresholds were set for a market that has since gone sideways, so they reach further into real suburbs than Sydney’s or Brisbane’s.

Victorian duty exemption and concession. Up to a dutiable value of $600,000 an eligible first home buyer pays no land transfer duty; from $600,001 to $750,000 a reduced amount. New homes, established homes and vacant land all qualify. Purchasers must be natural persons aged 18 or over, Australian citizens or permanent residents buying at market value to live in, none of whom (nor a spouse or partner) has received a First Home Owner Grant, owned a home in Australia before 1 July 2000, or owned and lived in one for six continuous months since then; and at least one of you must live in the home for 12 continuous months starting within 12 months of settlement. The full rules are on the SRO first home buyer page.

First Home Owner Grant. $10,000 for an eligible new home valued up to $750,000, unchanged since 1 July 2013; it stacks with the exemption on a new build.

Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme. Since 1 October 2025: no income caps, no waitlist and no lenders mortgage insurance, for first home buyers with 5% and single parents or legal guardians with 2%. The Victorian cap is $950,000 in Melbourne and Geelong and $650,000 elsewhere; both the price and the participating lender’s valuation must sit at or below it, you have 90 days from pre-approval to sign, and applications go only through a participating lender. Caps are on the government’s price cap page.

Temporary off-the-plan concession. For contracts signed from 21 October 2024 and before 21 April 2027, any purchaser of an apartment or townhouse in a strata subdivision with common property deducts the construction costs incurred on or after the contract date from the dutiable value, with no price threshold. The SRO’s worked example assesses a $1 million apartment with $400,000 of construction cost on $600,000, which for a first home buyer sits inside the exemption. It does not reduce foreign purchaser additional duty.

Where the thresholds land is the useful part. On the Cotality medians our suburb pages carry, the $600,000 exemption covers a median unit in the CBD ($413,250), Prahran ($525,000) or Windsor ($535,125) and a median house in Melton ($542,000); the $750,000 concession reaches a median house in Frankston North ($699,000) or Craigieburn ($720,000); and the $950,000 scheme cap takes in a median house in Doreen ($803,000), Geelong ($883,250) and Berwick ($908,250) and a median unit in most of the inner suburbs we cover, from South Yarra ($603,000) and Coburg ($610,000) to Richmond ($625,000) and Thornbury ($660,000); Albert Park units ($960,000) and Toorak and Brighton units sit above it.

In short: an eligible Melbourne first home buyer at $600,000 with a 5% deposit needs $30,000 in cash, pays no duty and no lenders mortgage insurance, and borrows $570,000 from a participating lender; the same buyer at Sydney’s $800,000 exemption ceiling needs $40,000 for a smaller home. One caution from the credit side of the desk: all three schemes carry a residency test, and the scheme guarantee can fall away if you stop living in the property, at which point the lender can require lenders mortgage insurance. Buy the home you will actually live in.

Check your Melbourne first home position with a former banker, free

Victorian duty, deposits and the loan at real Melbourne price points

Victoria’s principal place of residence duty rate runs to $550,000 and needs you to move in within 12 months and stay 12 months; above $550,000 the general rate applies to everyone, at $2,870 plus 6% of the value over $130,000 up to $960,000, a flat 5.5% to $2 million, then $110,000 plus 6.5% of the excess. Foreign purchasers add 8%. The table runs those schedules at the prices Melbourne buyers actually transact at, for a resident owner occupier who is not a first home buyer.

Duty computed from the SRO’s current principal place of residence schedule (1.4% to $25,000, $350 plus 2.4% to $130,000, $2,870 plus 5% to $440,000, $18,370 plus 6% to $550,000) and the general schedule for contracts from 1 July 2021. The 5% column is the deposit only: above the $950,000 cap the federal scheme does not apply and a 5% deposit would normally attract lenders mortgage insurance. Foreign purchaser additional duty is not included. Suburb medians are the Cotality figures on our suburb pages.

Against Sydney, duty at each city’s August 2026 median is $42,273 here against $49,209 there, so the second deposit is smaller in Melbourne as well as the first. But Victoria’s 6.5% premium rate starts at $2 million where New South Wales moves to its top rate only above $3.87 million, so on the Revenue NSW schedule set out on our Sydney page a $3.3 million Brighton purchase carries about $31,700 more duty than the same price in Sydney.

The Melbourne loyalty tax calculator: what your current rate costs against the one you have been offered

Melbourne owners who bought or fixed two or three years ago and have not looked since are, in our experience, the largest source of avoidable interest in this city. The ABS counts 66,449 owner occupier loans refinanced to a new lender nationally in the June quarter 2026 and another 43,848 repriced with the existing lender. Type your balance, the rate you are paying, the rate you have been offered (by your lender’s retention team, a competitor or us) and the years remaining; the calculator shows the repayment gap and the interest gap over the next five years. It does not suggest a rate; you type both.

Assumptions: principal and interest, monthly repayments, standard amortisation, both loans over the same remaining term, no fees, no offset balance, rates held constant. Interest figures are the interest in the first 60 repayments (or the whole term if fewer than 60 months remain). Fixed-rate break costs are not included; see the break costs guide below. The offered rate is whatever you type, not a rate we suggest. This is arithmetic, not credit advice.

Refinance your home loan in Melbourne while values are soft: the LVR drift problem

Everstone Finance refinances Melbourne home loans from our South Yarra office or by video: the valuation comes first, then the loan is priced across more than 40 lenders, and the saving and the switching costs go to you in writing before you apply.

Refinancing is the part of a downturn that rewards acting early, and Melbourne’s has run longer than any other big capital’s: on Cotality’s figures values are 7.5% below a peak set in March 2022 and 5.5% lower than five years ago, where Sydney peaked in February 2026 and Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth in autumn 2026. Every month of decline lifts your loan to value ratio: someone who settled a year ago at 80% is, on the index alone, closer to 85% today (80 divided by 93.8 is 85.3), and further if the security is a CBD apartment, where the unit median has softened over five years while houses rose (the figures are in the CBD section below).

The two lines that matter are 80% and 90%. Under 80% you can move freely and the loyalty tax above is usually the first thing worth checking. Between 80% and 90% a refinance can trigger lenders mortgage insurance a second time and wipe out the rate saving, so it is valuation first, decision second. Lenders differ on whether they accept a desktop valuation, which can land higher than a full inspection in a soft market; we know which is which before anything is ordered, because an application that fails on valuation still leaves an enquiry on your credit file and makes the next lender harder.

Above 90% lenders mortgage insurance is the main cost to weigh, so it is valuation first there too, and the numbers show when the switch pays. Fixed-rate borrowers should get the break cost in writing first; our break costs guide explains how it is calculated. If you plan to upgrade within Melbourne, a refinance now and a bridging loan later are best priced together, because the trade-up gap narrows on the way down. Our refinance guide covers the full decision and the best refinance home loan page matches ten borrower situations to loan types.

Melbourne’s price bands through our suburb pages

A Melbourne median of $780,550 averages a Toorak mansion with a Melton house and a CBD studio. The suburbs we work in most show the spread; each has its own page, and the figures are the Cotality medians those pages carry.

• Toorak, $5.65 million, and Brighton, $3.30 million: maximum loan size, valuation method and how a lender treats bonus, trust and overseas income, with the premium duty rate above $2 million.
• Hawthorn, $2.79 million, Albert Park, about $2.4 million, and South Yarra, $1.98 million: inner east and bayside period homes, usually upgrader files with a property to sell, where bridging and settlement timing decide the outcome. South Yarra is also our address.
• Prahran, $1.61 million, Thornbury, $1.45 million, Richmond, $1.38 million, and Coburg, $1.23 million: inner north and south terraces and apartments, where the unit medians put first home buyers inside or near the duty thresholds.
• Rowville, $1.2 million, and Berwick, $908,250: the south east’s family housing, where the $950,000 scheme cap still covers the median Berwick house.
• Craigieburn, $720,000, and Melton, $542,000: the north and west growth corridors, where the exemption, the grant and construction lending do most of the work.
• Geelong, $883,250: the only Victorian regional centre that shares Melbourne’s $950,000 scheme cap.

If your suburb is not listed, the logic still applies: the price band decides which lenders compete, and we run the file across the panel rather than starting with a favourite. The locations page lists every suburb we cover.

The CBD: postcode 3000, Melbourne’s most apartment-dominated market

No other Melbourne market looks like the CBD. Cotality’s suburb report for May 2026 counts 41,620 units against 1,429 houses in postcode 3000, puts the median unit at about $413,250 (lower quartile about $320,000, upper about $535,000) and the median house at about $485,000, with roughly 54,900 residents, the largest group aged 20 to 29, and about 74% renting. Unit rents near $675 a week give indicative gross yields near 7.9%, the top of the metro range, while the CBD unit median has softened about 7% over five years against a house median up about 48%, and sits well under the wider Melbourne unit median the same report put near $641,690 in early 2026.

The lending consequence is specific: many towers are full of studios and one bedroom apartments, a lot of lenders treat anything under about 50 square metres as higher risk, capping the loan or asking for a bigger deposit, and some cap their exposure to a single building. A converted heritage office on Flinders Lane and a new studio near Melbourne Central finance very differently. The free tram zone, Flinders Street and Southern Cross stations, RMIT and the University of Melbourne on the Parkville edge keep rental demand high, so this is the one Melbourne market where investors and first home buyers overlap, and the lender is chosen for the building first and the rate second.

Investors: what the ABS and the SRO actually show for Victoria

There is a lot of commentary about investors leaving Victoria; the primary data is more precise. ABS Lending Indicators, Table 14, seasonally adjusted: Victorian investor loan commitments fell to 12,583 in the June quarter 2026 from 14,669 in the March quarter, a 14.2% fall against 8.6% nationally, yet still 7.4% above the June quarter 2025. By value, Victorian investors borrowed $7.73 billion and Queensland investors $8.63 billion, and Queensland has out-borrowed Victoria in every quarter since at least June 2024. The clearest signal is loan size: the average Victorian investor loan was $604,000 in June 2026, the smallest of the five mainland states (New South Wales $851,000, Queensland $713,000, Western Australia $678,000, South Australia $642,000), where in June 2021 Victoria’s $549,000 was second only to New South Wales. Investors have not left; they are buying cheaper Melbourne property, and more of the money is going north.

Land tax is the part a lender’s calculator cannot see. The SRO’s general rates for the 2024 to 2033 land tax years start at a total taxable land value of $50,000: $500 from $50,000, $975 from $100,000, $1,350 plus 0.3% of the excess from $300,000, $2,250 plus 0.6% from $600,000, $4,650 plus 0.9% from $1 million, $11,850 plus 1.65% from $1.8 million and $31,650 plus 2.65% from $3 million. Absentee owners pay more on a separate SRO schedule, vacant residential land tax runs at 1% of capital improved value in the first liable year, 2% in the second and 3% from the third, and your own home is exempt. We add land tax back when we work out what a Melbourne investment property really costs to hold.

Nationally the rental vacancy rate reached 2.0% in September, its highest since January 2025 but still well below the pre-COVID decade average of 3.3%. Lenders apply their own haircut to rent and their own assessment floor, so the same property services at one lender and fails at another; see the investment loan rates guide, the investment deposit guide and the rental yields ranking.

Sydney money and expat money coming into Melbourne

The $418,000 gap between the Sydney and Melbourne medians at 30 September 2026 is being used. On the August 2026 medians, a 20% deposit plus duty is $199,617 in Melbourne ($157,344 plus $42,273) against $293,753 in Sydney ($244,544 plus $49,209 on the Revenue NSW schedule). For a Sydney owner, releasing equity from a home that fell 7.0% over the year to buy in a city that fell 6.2% is a bet that the price gap is wider than the difference in the two cities’ prospects. We build those files as two loans that are not cross-collateralised, so a soft Sydney valuation later does not reach the Melbourne property.

Melbourne is also where many returning Australians land, and the Victorian rules favour citizens. Foreign purchaser additional duty is 8% of the dutiable value, but the SRO defines a foreign natural person as someone who is not an Australian citizen, does not hold a permanent residence visa and is not a New Zealand citizen who ordinarily lives in Australia (six consecutive months within the 12 months either side of settlement). An Australian citizen living in Singapore, Dubai or London is not a foreign purchaser for Victorian duty; a foreign national partner on the title pays the 8% on their share, and the off-the-plan concession does not reduce it. The harder part is the lender: how foreign income is shaded, which currencies are accepted and whether negative gearing counts without an Australian tax return all differ between banks. Our expat home loans guide, the bank comparison and the expat mortgage broker page cover the process from overseas, including identity verification and settlement without flying home.

Melbourne professions that lenders price differently

Melbourne’s hospitals, schools, practices and firms employ a large share of the professions lenders write specific policy for. Nurses and midwives, teachers, dentists and accountants can, with select lenders, borrow to 90% of value without lenders mortgage insurance, which on a $780,550 median can be worth more than a rate discount; the Parkville biomedical precinct alone puts clinical and research staff a tram ride from the apartment market above. Eligibility depends on the lender and on how your income is paid, so the detail lives on the profession pages: nurses, teachers and educators, dentists and accountants. Those benefits apply to buyers living and working in Australia, not to purchases from overseas.

A broker whose home city is Melbourne: South Yarra in person, or by video

Everstone Finance is based at 35 Malcolm Street, South Yarra, and was founded by Ahmed Lotfi and Zappelin Heng, former major-bank lenders who spent years on the credit side of the desk. Melbourne clients get a choice most online brokers cannot offer: a face-to-face appointment in South Yarra, or the same conversation by video or phone from Craigieburn, Geelong or a hotel room in Dubai. We speak English, Arabic and French. Settlement in Victoria is electronic through PEXA and identity verification is by video or at an Australia Post outlet, so in person is a preference, not a requirement.

What you get is a file priced across more than 40 lenders rather than one branch’s product list, by people who know how each lender’s policy is applied rather than how it is advertised. We are paid by the lender on settlement, out of the lender’s own margin, and nothing by you; you are quoted off the same rate card as a branch customer, and our guide to what a mortgage broker costs explains how. We will not quote a rate before we have seen your numbers, because in Melbourne in 2026 the approval turns on valuation, serviceability and policy fit. Outside Melbourne, our online mortgage broker page covers every state.

Book a free Melbourne home loan appointment, in South Yarra or by video, with a former banker

Who you will be talking to

The people behind Everstone

A home loan is one of the largest financial decisions most people make. Here is who will actually be working on yours.

Ahmed Lotfi

Mortgage Broker & Co-Founder

A former major bank lender who now works entirely for you. Ahmed runs the file personally: structure, lender selection and the negotiation with the credit desk. English, Arabic and French.

Zappelin Heng

Mortgage Broker & Co-Founder

Co-founder with deep lender experience, focused on getting complex and self-employed files assessed on their real strength, not a tick-box, including business owners and investors with multiple securities.

Melbourne mortgage broker FAQs

Business owners and investors buying premises rather than homes: see our commercial property loans Melbourne guide, which covers Victorian commercial duty and the CIPT reform, GST at settlement, SMSF business real property and a buy-or-lease calculator.

Melbourne guides worth reading before you borrow

• Melbourne property market forecast 2027: what the banks and portals expect, updated with the September data.
• Median and average house prices in Australia: Melbourne against every capital on the same index.
• Deposit needed by city: the cash required at each capital’s median.
• Australia’s least affordable cities: where Melbourne now sits on price to income.
• What a mortgage broker costs: how broker remuneration works and why the service is free to you.
• Australian rents: the rental side for Melbourne investors and rentvestors.

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