Self-employed mortgages, done right.

Yes. A handful of alt-doc lenders (Pepper, Liberty, Resimac) accept '1 year self-employed + 2+ years of PAYG in the same industry'. The key is industry continuity — 8 years of hospitality PAYG followed by opening your own café reads much better than a clean career pivot. Which lenders accept, rate range, deposit minimums — a free 3-minute pre-check will tell you.

Alt-doc typically runs 0.3–0.8% above full-doc. On a $600k loan, an extra 0.5% = about $3,000 more interest a year. If you're buying within 12 months, take alt-doc now and recoup the difference via a single refinance later. If your timeline is 24+ months and you're rate-sensitive, waiting for two full tax years and going full-doc is defensible. We run both scenarios for you.

BAS-only = four quarters of BAS replace tax returns; the bank uses annualised turnover for serviceability. Conditions: (1) four consecutive quarters lodged; (2) GST figures consistent or showing reasonable growth; (3) ABN active for 24+ months. Useful when revenue is clean but tax returns are still in progress. About 8 lenders support this. Rates sit between alt-doc and full-doc.

Major banks are more cautious about some industries (hospitality, rideshare, cash-heavy trades, beauty / nails) but rarely blanket-reject — they care more about ledger consistency, whether you take electronic payments, and whether tax filings are complete. Alt-doc and specialist lenders care far less about industry; they focus on BAS consistency and bank-statement readability. Free pre-check tells you exactly which lenders accept your industry.

Yes — and this is usually the smartest structure. The PAYG partner's stable payslips carry most of the serviceability, so the self-employed half's complex income just adds on. The result: you qualify under full-doc with major banks at the lowest rates, instead of being stuck in alt-doc territory. We handle a lot of these combined cases.

Add-backs are non-cash expenses (depreciation, one-off large expenses, interest paid to your own entity) that get added back to taxable income, bringing the lender's view of your usable income closer to real cash flow — fully compliant, accepted by every lender, but the items and percentages allowed vary lender by lender. Our job is picking the lender with the most generous add-back policy for your industry. Your accountant just needs to produce a letter to that lender's template.

There's no contract during the free pre-check stage — you can take our lender shortlist and apply directly yourself, no fee owed. The credit assistance agreement (mandatory under NCCP) is only signed when you say 'I want to formally apply to this lender' and authorise us to submit on your behalf. You can pause or change your mind any time before settlement — no break fee.

No. The free pre-check matches what you tell us (ABN tenure, income, debts, deposit source) against 40+ lenders' self-employed policies — we don't pull Equifax / illion, and no enquiry lands on your credit file. A formal credit pull only happens once you say "submit to this lender" and authorise it. So you can pre-check freely, compare multiple options, and your credit score stays untouched.