Mortgage Broker Gold Coast: Former Bankers, 40+ Lenders, Holiday Lets
The Gold Coast is one market on the map and three inside a lender’s credit policy, which is the first thing a Gold Coast mortgage broker has to explain. A North Burleigh apartment, a house on Burleigh Hill and an acreage block at Tamborine sit within an hour of each other and are assessed under different rules: unit size and building density on the coast, land and services in the hinterland, and whether the rent you are counting on comes from a long lease or a holiday let. Cotality reports the Gold Coast inside its regional Queensland series rather than as a capital city, so this page works from the medians our own suburb pages carry, Burleigh Heads at $1,612,500 for houses and $1,195,000 for units and Tamborine at $1,475,000, and from that regional index, which finished September 2026 at $834,425, 2.8% below its May peak.
Straight answer: a Gold Coast mortgage broker’s job is to match the property to a lender that will actually take it before the rate conversation starts. On a $1,195,000 Burleigh Heads unit that means $49,237.50 in Queensland transfer duty at the standard rate, or $42,062.50 with the home concession if you will live in it, a $239,000 deposit at 20%, and a lender with no objection to the building’s size, density or letting arrangement. Below $1,000,000 the federal 5% Deposit Scheme applies on the Gold Coast at the same price cap as Brisbane. Holiday-let income is assessed differently from a long lease. Everstone is run by former bankers, we lend into Queensland from more than 40 lenders, appointments are by video or phone, and there is no cost to you. To have a property checked against lender policy before you sign, book a free Gold Coast property and lender check.
- Why choose Everstone
- How it works: four steps
- Coast and hinterland: two lending files an hour apart
- High-rise and small units: what the coast asks a lender
- Holiday let or long lease: the investor’s question, with a calculator
- Queensland transfer duty at Gold Coast prices
- First home on the Gold Coast: concessions, the grant and the $1,000,000 cap
- Selling up in Sydney or Melbourne: interstate buyers, downsizers and retirees
- Tradies, the self-employed and the professions
- Refinancing on the Gold Coast after a five-year run
- Expats coming back to the coast
- Why a Melbourne-based online broker for a Gold Coast loan
- Gold Coast mortgage broker FAQs
- Gold Coast guides worth reading before you borrow
Why choose Everstone as your Gold Coast mortgage broker
On the coast the property is assessed before the borrower is, so the first thing we do differently is start with the building or the block. Whether the security is a North Burleigh apartment, a house on Burleigh Hill or an acreage block at Tamborine decides which of the more than 40 lenders on our panel will take it, at what maximum loan to value ratio, and whether the rent you are counting on is assessed as a long lease or discounted as a holiday let. Getting that right before anyone orders a valuation is the whole job of a mortgage broker on the Gold Coast.
The people doing it are Ahmed Lotfi and Zappelin Heng, the founders, former bankers who know how each lender applies its unit, acreage and short-stay rules rather than how it advertises them, and who take a tradie’s or business owner’s accounts to the lender that assesses them on their real strength. You pay nothing for that: the lender pays us on settlement, at the same rate whichever lender you choose. Appointments are by video or phone, which suits coast clients and every interstate buyer, documents are PDFs and Queensland settlements are electronic. Everstone is rated 5.0 on Google from 14 reviews (October 2026), and the files this page covers, high-rise units, holiday lets, first homes under the $1,000,000 cap, downsizers, the self-employed and expats coming back to the coast, are the ones it was written around.
How it works: four steps with a Gold Coast mortgage broker
- Call. A free video or phone appointment with a former banker that starts with the property, the building, the block and how it is let, and then moves to your income and deposit.
- Documents. Emailed as PDFs: the contract, a lease or rental appraisal where there is one, payslips or business accounts, and identification verified by video or at an Australia Post outlet.
- Shortlist, lodge, pre-approve. We shortlist the lenders whose unit, acreage or short-stay policy accepts the security, price the file across the panel of more than 40, then lodge and take it to pre-approval.
- Settlement. Queensland settlements are electronic, and if the purchase depends on a Sydney or Melbourne sale the bridging, subject-to-sale or deposit bond piece is structured before you sign.
Coast and hinterland: two lending files an hour apart
Burleigh Heads is a village built around the headland, the beach and the James Street strip, and it is mostly apartments: 4,423 units against 1,908 houses, about 65% owner-occupied. Cotality’s May 2026 suburb data puts the house median at about $1,612,500 and the unit median at about $1,195,000, and over the five years to February 2026 houses rose roughly 74% and units roughly 108%. Vacancy sits near 0.78%, the light rail extension is reaching the suburb, and the pockets differ: prestige houses around Burleigh Hill and the headland, dense apartment blocks through North Burleigh, and family homes inland toward West Burleigh and Tallebudgera Creek.
Tamborine is the opposite file, and it is not the mountain. The villages of Tamborine Mountain are up the hill; Tamborine is the rural acreage locality at the northern foot of the range in the Scenic Rim, 46 kilometres from the Brisbane GPO. It has 1,408 dwellings on blocks of one to four hectares, 91% owner-occupied, and a 12-month median house price of $1,475,000 as at August 2026, with the middle half of the market between $1,300,000 and $1,650,000. About 13 homes are listed at any one time, the median time on market is around 33 days, and trades are the most common occupation.
A Burleigh unit file is about the building: internal floor area, number of lots, letting pool, title type, body corporate, and how many same-building resales the valuer can find. A Tamborine file is about the land: how many hectares, whether any of it produces income, and how a valuer prices a property with 13 comparable listings in the whole locality rather than 130. The same lender can be the sharpest option for one and a poor fit for the other, which is why we run the property past credit policy before we run the rate.
In short: on the Gold Coast the property decides the lender. A beachside unit, a hill house and a hinterland block each pass or fail different policy tests, and a wrong match costs a declined application on your credit file and a lost contract. We match the property first, then price it across the panel.
High-rise and small units: what the coast asks a lender that Sydney does not
Most dwellings between the Broadwater and Coolangatta are units, and units in tall or dense buildings are where lender policy varies most, building by building, which is why a pre-approval for “a unit up to $1.2 million” can fail at contract.
Five checks decide most Gold Coast unit files. Floor area: many lenders set a minimum internal size, measured without balconies and car parks, and lend on smaller apartments at a reduced loan to value ratio or not at all. Density: lenders commonly cap how much of a single building they will fund, and some apply high-density postcode categories with lower maximum LVRs. Letting arrangement: a unit in a hotel letting pool, a serviced apartment or a resort-style title is a different class of security from a standard strata unit, with a shorter list of willing lenders. Body corporate: levies affect serviceability; management rights, defects or special levies affect the valuation. Comparable sales: valuers price against resales in the same or similar buildings, thin in a new tower.
So we ask for the building facts before the payslip: strata plan, internal area, number of lots, letting arrangement and the last two body corporate statements. Off the plan, the valuation is done at completion, not at contract.
Holiday let or long lease: the investor’s question, with a calculator
Coast yields are better than the southern capitals and worse than the brochures. Cotality’s September 2026 gross rental yield for regional Queensland is 4.3%, against 3.4% in Sydney, 4.1% in Melbourne and 3.5% in Brisbane. In Burleigh Heads the indicative gross unit yield has compressed to around 3.7% after the price run, while vacancy near 0.78% keeps long-term tenants easy to find.
Long lease or holiday let has two halves. The cash flow half is arithmetic: nightly rate times occupancy, less the heavier management and cleaning costs of short stays, against 52 weeks of rent less an agent’s fee. The lending half is policy. For a long lease, lenders generally count a share of the rent from the lease or a rental appraisal, shaded for vacancy and costs. For short-stay income, most will not take a platform’s earnings history at face value; many use a long-term rental appraisal instead, and some exclude the income altogether. The specifics differ by lender and change without notice, so we check them on your file rather than quoting them here.
The practical rule is to buy on the long-lease figure: if the property services on a lease appraisal, the holiday-let upside is yours and the loan does not depend on a good summer. One Queensland point: if you claim a first home concession on duty, you cannot lease out the whole property within the first year after moving in without a reassessment, so living in it briefly and then letting it short-stay needs the duty position checked first.
Holiday let or long lease: run your own numbers
Enter the figures from your property manager’s appraisal and the short-stay projection you have been given. Nothing is stored and no figure here is a lender’s assessment.
Assumptions: holiday-let gross equals nightly rate multiplied by 365 nights multiplied by occupancy; long-lease gross equals weekly rent multiplied by 52; management percentages are applied to gross rent only; yields are gross rent divided by purchase price and ignore body corporate levies, rates, insurance, land tax, furnishing, vacancy between long leases and tax. The purchase price is pre-filled with the Burleigh Heads unit median from our suburb page and can be changed. This is a cash flow comparison, not a lending assessment or advice.
Check how a lender would read your Gold Coast unit or acreage file with a former banker, free
In the Gold Coast? Call, text or WhatsApp Ahmed directly. It is his own mobile, no call centre, and the first chat is free.
Queensland transfer duty at Gold Coast prices
Queensland runs three rate cards for a residential purchase. Standard transfer duty applies to investors and anyone not moving in. The home concession applies if you will live in the property within a year of settlement, whether or not you have owned before, and is worth up to $7,175. The first home concession applies to an existing home valued under $800,000 for a first-time owner, is worth up to $24,525 and reduces duty to nil under $700,000. On a first home that is a new home, or vacant land to build one on, contracts dated 1 May 2025 or later attract a full concession with no cap. The tables are at Queensland Revenue Office, last updated 25 June 2026.
| Purchase price | Standard duty | Home concession | First home concession (existing home) | 20% deposit | 5% deposit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $700,000 (first home nil-duty ceiling) | $24,525 | $17,350 | $0 | $140,000 | $35,000 |
| $800,000 (first home concession cut-off) | $29,025 | $21,850 | $21,850 (concession no longer applies) | $160,000 | $40,000 |
| $844,803 (Cotality regional Queensland median, August 2026) | $31,045.50 | $23,870.50 | $23,870.50 | $168,961 | $42,240 |
| $1,000,000 (5% Deposit Scheme cap on the Gold Coast) | $38,025 | $30,850 | $30,850 | $200,000 | $50,000 |
| $1,195,000 (Burleigh Heads unit median) | $49,237.50 | $42,062.50 | $42,062.50 | $239,000 | Above scheme cap |
| $1,475,000 (Tamborine house median) | $65,337.50 | $58,162.50 | $58,162.50 | $295,000 | Above scheme cap |
| $1,612,500 (Burleigh Heads house median) | $73,243.75 | $66,068.75 | $66,068.75 | $322,500 | Above scheme cap |
Rates above $540,000: standard $17,325 plus $4.50 per $100 to $1,000,000, then $38,025 plus $5.75 per $100; home concession $10,150 plus $4.50 per $100 to $1,000,000, then $30,850 plus $5.75 per $100. The first home concession deducts a further $17,350 below $710,000, tapering to $1,735 between $790,000 and $799,999.99. Foreign persons pay additional foreign acquirer duty of 8%. For contracts from 1 August 2026 the home concessions require an Australian citizen, permanent resident or specified foreign retiree. There is no seniors or pensioner rate.
The Burleigh Heads unit median sits above the $1,000,000 band break, so its last $195,000 is dutied at $5.75 per $100 rather than $4.50, and above the scheme cap, so a 5% deposit there means lenders mortgage insurance or a family guarantee rather than a government guarantee.
First home on the Gold Coast: concessions, the grant and the $1,000,000 cap
Queensland first home concession. On an existing home, an eligible first-time buyer pays no duty under $700,000 and a reducing concession up to $800,000; above that only the home concession applies. You must be an individual, at least 18, never have held an interest in a residence anywhere, and move in within one year of settlement. You cannot sell, or lease out the whole property, within a year of moving in without a reassessment. On a new home or vacant land, a contract dated 1 May 2025 or later pays no duty at any price on the residential land. The rules are at Queensland Revenue Office.
Queensland first home owner grant. $30,000 for a contract signed on or after 20 November 2023 to buy or build a new home valued under $750,000 including land, and it can be combined with the duty concession and the federal scheme.
Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme. Since 1 October 2025 the scheme has had no income caps, no waiting list and unlimited places, and an eligible buyer with a 5% deposit (2% for a single parent) pays no lenders mortgage insurance. Queensland’s cap is $1,000,000 for the capital city and regional centres, and Housing Australia’s table names the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast as those centres; other areas of Queensland are capped at $700,000. Both the purchase price and the lender’s valuation must be at or below the cap, and the guarantee depends on living in the home. The postcode search tool at firsthomebuyers.gov.au is the final word on which cap a suburb sits in.
Stacked on a $700,000 existing unit, the concession and the scheme mean $0 duty, a $35,000 deposit and no LMI. Above $1,000,000 the conversation moves to a family guarantee, the Help to Buy shared equity scheme, or a bigger deposit; our guide to every first home grant and scheme by state sets Queensland against the rest.
Selling up in Sydney or Melbourne: interstate buyers, downsizers and retirees
Sell down south and buy on the coast is the Gold Coast’s oldest story, and in 2026 it needs checking suburb by suburb. Cotality’s September medians are $1,198,596 for Sydney and $780,550 for Melbourne. A Sydney median sale covers the price of a Burleigh Heads median unit with only $3,596 to spare, before duty and costs, and sits $413,904 short of a Burleigh median house and $276,404 short of a Tamborine block. From Melbourne the gap runs the other way everywhere: a Burleigh unit costs $414,450 more than the Melbourne median and Tamborine $694,450 more. Against the regional Queensland median of $834,425 the picture is friendlier, $364,171 under Sydney and $53,875 over Melbourne.
The gap is also moving. Sydney values fell 7.0% and Melbourne 6.2% in the year to September while regional Queensland rose 6.3%, so over that year any delay between selling and buying widened the difference. That argues for fixing the sale before the purchase, or pricing a bridging loan on a conservative sale figure, with Queensland duty counted in the peak debt. The alternatives, subject-to-sale contracts, deposit bonds and simultaneous settlement, are in our bridging alternatives guide, with the fees in bridging loan costs.
For downsizers and retirees: The Queensland home concession is available on a second or later home, so a retiree buying a Burleigh unit to live in saves $7,175 against the standard rate. And lenders ask how a loan running past your expected retirement will be repaid, so a downsizer loan is usually written with the sale of the larger home, superannuation or the smaller final debt as the documented exit. The sequence is in bridging loans for downsizers.
Tradies, the self-employed and the professions: the income files the coast produces
Trades are the most common occupation in Tamborine, and across the coast a large share of our files are self-employed: builders, electricians, plumbers, and the surf and tourism operators. Lenders generally work from tax returns and financial statements, add back non-cash items such as depreciation, look at how long the ABN has been registered, and treat company or trust income according to how it actually reaches you. Some accept one year of figures where most want two. The difference between lenders on identical accounts can be a hundred thousand dollars or more of capacity, and our self-employed home loans guide covers the mechanics.
The coast also employs the professions lenders price specifically. Nurses, midwives, teachers and first responders at the Gold Coast’s hospitals, schools and stations can, with the right lender, borrow to a higher loan to value ratio with lenders mortgage insurance waived, and on a $1,000,000 unit that waiver can be worth more than a rate discount. The detail is on the profession pages: nurses, midwives, teachers and police, firefighters and paramedics. Those benefits apply to buyers living and working in Australia, not to overseas purchases.
Refinancing on the Gold Coast after a five-year run
The coast’s owners hold equity built at a pace few Australian markets matched: roughly 74% on Burleigh Heads houses and 108% on its units over the five years to February 2026, a doubling at Tamborine from about $750,000 in mid 2021, and 58.1% across Cotality’s regional Queensland index over the five years to August 2026, 112.4% over ten. A loan written in 2021 at 90% of value can be well under 80% today, which can mean leaving lenders mortgage insurance territory, sharper pricing and room to release equity.
The catch is timing. Regional Queensland fell 0.9% in September and 2.5% over the quarter, to sit 2.8% below its May 2026 peak, and valuers respond to a turn faster than owners do. If the refinance depends on a valuation to get under 80%, get the valuation first and choose the lender second, because some lenders use automated valuations that can land higher than a full inspection in a softening market and some do not. Our refinance guide walks through the decision, the best refinance home loan page matches situations to loan types, the refinance savings calculator puts a number on your current loan, and the break costs guide covers leaving a fixed rate. With the cash rate at 4.60% since 30 September 2026, after four rises this year, any saving comes from the margin between lenders rather than from the cash rate.
Expats coming back to the coast
The Gold Coast draws the returning Australian who left from Brisbane or Sydney, worked in Singapore, Dubai, London or Hong Kong, and wants the beach rather than the city they left. Two rules decide most of those files. The first is how the lender treats foreign income: some shade it heavily, some accept only a short list of currencies, and some will not lend without an Australian address. The second is Queensland duty. For contracts from 1 August 2026 the home and first home concessions require an Australian citizen, permanent resident or specified foreign retiree, so an Australian citizen living abroad still qualifies on a home they will move into within a year, while a non-citizen partner’s share of the same purchase is assessed at the full rate plus 8% additional foreign acquirer duty.
The detail is on the expat pages: expat home loans for income treatment, the bank comparison for which lenders currently work for expats, returning expat home loans for applying before you move, and the expat mortgage broker page.
Why a Melbourne-based online broker for a Gold Coast loan
Because the lender’s address is the only one that matters, and more than 40 of them are on our panel. Queensland settlements are electronic, identity verification is done by video or at an Australia Post outlet, and documents are PDFs. Brokers wrote 81.0% of new residential loans in Australia in the March 2026 quarter, and the work that decides a Gold Coast file, matching the building or the block to a lender’s policy before anyone orders a valuation, is done on a screen wherever the broker sits. What you get is former bankers who know how each lender applies its unit, acreage and short-stay rules rather than how it advertises them, and who price the file across the whole panel. We are paid by the lender on settlement, at the same rate whichever lender you choose, and nothing by you; what a mortgage broker costs sets out how that works.
What you will not get is a rate quoted before we have seen the property. Our online mortgage broker page explains the process, our Sydney page shows the same approach in a different market, and locations lists the Queensland suburbs we work in.
Book a free Gold Coast home loan appointment by video with a former banker
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
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
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.
Gold Coast mortgage broker FAQs
How much is stamp duty on a Gold Coast unit or house in 2026?
At the Burleigh Heads unit median of $1,195,000, Queensland transfer duty is $49,237.50 at the standard rate or $42,062.50 with the home concession. At the Burleigh Heads house median of $1,612,500 it is $73,243.75 or $66,068.75. An eligible first home buyer pays nothing on an existing home under $700,000, and nothing on a new home for contracts from 1 May 2025.
Does the 5% Deposit Scheme cover the Gold Coast, and what is the price cap?
Yes. Housing Australia’s price cap table sets Queensland’s capital city and regional centre cap at $1,000,000 and names the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast as the regional centres, so a Gold Coast purchase shares Brisbane’s cap. Other areas of Queensland are capped at $700,000, and there are no income caps and no lenders mortgage insurance.
Will a lender count my Airbnb or holiday-let income on a Gold Coast unit?
Usually not at face value. For a long lease, lenders generally count a share of the rent from the lease or a rental appraisal. For short-stay income, most will not use a platform’s earnings history as presented; many use a long-term rental appraisal instead and some exclude it. Make sure the property services on the long-lease figure and treat holiday-let earnings as upside.
Can I get a home loan on a small or high-rise unit on the Gold Coast?
Often, but it depends on the building. Many lenders set a minimum internal floor area, limit how much of a single building they will fund, apply lower maximum loan to value ratios in high-density categories, and treat units in hotel letting pools or on serviced apartment titles as a separate security class. We collect the building facts first, then shortlist lenders.
I am selling in Sydney or Melbourne and buying on the Gold Coast. Do I need a bridging loan?
Not always. A Sydney median sale of $1,198,596 only just covers a Burleigh Heads median unit of $1,195,000, before duty and costs, but not a Burleigh house at $1,612,500, and a Melbourne median of $780,550 is below most of the coast. If you need the sale proceeds to settle, the options are a bridging loan priced on a conservative sale figure, a subject-to-sale contract or a deposit bond.
How do I choose a mortgage broker on the Gold Coast?
Start with whether the broker asks about the property before your income. On the Gold Coast the building’s size and density, a hotel letting pool or serviced apartment title, hinterland services and holiday-let income each rule lenders in or out, and a broker who has not asked cannot shortlist properly. Then check the panel (more than 40 lenders here), who runs the file (our founders, both former bankers) and the fee (none to you, because the lender pays on settlement).
Does a mortgage broker on the Gold Coast cost anything?
No. Appointments are by video or phone, which suits most Gold Coast clients and every interstate buyer; Queensland settlements are electronic and identity checks are done by video or at an Australia Post outlet. We are paid by the lender on settlement at the same rate whichever lender you choose, and that does not change what you pay on the loan.
Can a Gold Coast mortgage broker help if I am self-employed?
Yes, and it is one of the most common files the coast produces. Trades are the most common occupation in Tamborine, and across the coast a large share of our files are self-employed, so the income section above and our self-employed home loans guide cover how lenders read business accounts. The difference between lenders on identical accounts can be a hundred thousand dollars or more of capacity, which is why the file goes to the lender whose policy suits it rather than to the nearest branch.
Gold Coast guides worth reading before you borrow
- Mortgage broker Burleigh Heads: the coast file in detail.
- Mortgage broker Tamborine: the hinterland file and acreage lending.
- Brisbane property market forecast 2027: the nearest capital-city forecast.
- Median and average house prices in Australia: every capital on the same Cotality index.
- Deposit needed by city: the cash required at each capital’s median.
- Investment property loan rates and investment property deposits.
- High-value and prestige home loans: for the Burleigh Hill end of the market.