Doctor home loans in Brisbane and Queensland

Start with how you are paid

Lenders don't have one rule for doctors. They read your income according to how it reaches you, and in Brisbane that usually means one of four arrangements:

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• Salaried in a hospital. Interns, residents, registrars and senior medical officers employed by a Hospital and Health Service, the Mater or a private hospital. Your payslip does most of the work.

• GP registrar in a training practice. Usually an employee of the practice, paid the greater of a minimum base rate or a share of your billings.

• Sole trader in a practice or rooms. Most fellowed GPs bill through their own ABN and pay the practice a service fee from their billings. Many specialists do private work the same way from their rooms, paying a service fee or a fixed rent.

• Practice owner. You own the practice, often through a company or trust, and other doctors and staff work in it.

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Plenty of doctors combine two of these, such as a senior medical officer with private practice rights, or a registrar doing locum shifts. Lenders read each part on its own terms, and each is covered below.

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Salaried doctors: how lenders read a hospital payslip

Most doctors in Brisbane's public hospitals are employed by a Hospital and Health Service under the Medical Officers' (Queensland Health) Certified Agreement (No. 7) 2025, usually called MOCA7. It sets your pay, but a lender doesn't need to know where you sit in it. What a lender reads is the payslip itself: your position (such as RMO or registrar), your fortnightly salary, and separate lines for overtime, on-call and allowances.

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For a lender, base salary is the easy part. It is stable, it is set by a public agreement, and almost every lender counts all of it. The harder part is everything else on the payslip.

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Overtime, on-call and allowances

A registrar's payslip often carries overtime, on-call and recall payments, shift penalties and allowances on top of base pay. Those extras can add tens of thousands of dollars a year, and lenders don't all treat them the same way. Because doctors are essential workers, most lenders count 100% of overtime, but some shade it to 80%. Allowances, such as professional development, retention and rural allowances, vary more: not every lender counts them in full. Two lenders looking at the same payslip can arrive at quite different borrowing figures.

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Lenders also differ on how much history they want before they count overtime and allowances. Some are happy with two payslips and your employment contract, some want three months of payslips, and some want your last tax return and notice of assessment to check the income is consistent.

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Rotations and new contracts

Registrars in training often move between hospitals, and sometimes between Hospital and Health Services, as their rotations change. On paper that can look like a new job every year or two, but lenders generally don't treat it that way. You are still employed by Queensland Health, so moving from, say, Metro North to Metro South during an application isn't an issue. Even a change of employer altogether is usually fine, as long as there isn't a long gap between jobs.

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Salary packaging

Queensland Health staff can salary package part of their pay, which lowers the taxable figure on the payslip. Lenders differ on whether they add packaged amounts back when they assess income.

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Some use your net pay and add back what you salary sacrifice. What you package matters too. For a novated lease, some lenders treat the lease as a repayment and use your gross pay, while others use only your net pay. If you package your home loan repayments, that amount can usually be added back. Either way, expect the lender to ask for your RemServ statement, and sometimes a letter confirming that the salary sacrifice is voluntary and can be cancelled at any time.

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GPs, specialists and doctors in private practice

Once your income comes through your own ABN, most lenders stop reading payslips and start reading tax returns. The figure that counts is your taxable income after any service fee and your own costs, not what you bill. Lenders can add some items back, such as depreciation, interest, one-off expenses and super above the guarantee rate.

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GP registrars

GP registrars are the exception. Under the National Terms and Conditions for the Employment of Registrars (NTCER), you are usually an employee of your training practice, paid the greater of a minimum base rate or a share of your billings. Your income arrives on a payslip, as a hospital doctor's does, and most lenders count whichever of the two you are actually paid. Some will still ask for supporting documents, such as the practice's billing statements, a BAS or interim figures.

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Sole traders in a practice or rooms

Most fellowed GPs work this way. You bill patients and Medicare under your own provider number, the practice keeps a service fee, usually a percentage of your billings, and the rest is yours. Specialists doing private work from their rooms are in the same position. Because the income comes through your ABN, most lenders treat it as self-employed income and read it from your tax returns and notices of assessment. If your income is rising, they will generally use your most recent year on its own rather than averaging two years.

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If you have only recently moved from a hospital salary into a practice, you don't always have to wait for a tax return. Some medico lenders (lenders with their own policies for medical professionals) can assess you from about three months in. They will want the practice's monthly billing statements, backed up by your bank statements, and may look at your BAS and your service agreement too. Depending on the lender and how much your income moves around, some also ask for interim financials from your accountant. Others want a full year's tax return first.

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Practice owners

Most practices are owned by several doctors together. In that case lenders generally work from your own tax return: the income the practice pays or distributes to you. Where one doctor owns the practice outright, through a company or trust, the lender may also look at the company or trust financials alongside your personal return. For a home loan, though, the income that counts is what reaches you. The practice's own profit matters mainly when the loan is for a commercial purpose, such as buying a practice or its goodwill.

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Where financials are needed, lenders generally ask for the most recent year's, and some will also consider interim figures and your BAS. Expect them to check your ATO account as well: in most cases any tax debt needs to be paid before you apply. Some medico lenders offer short-term low doc loans for doctors, but not all do.

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Private practice on top of a hospital salary

Plenty of senior doctors earn both. A senior medical officer with a right of private practice in a Queensland public hospital chooses between two options: assign all private billings to the hospital, in return for the full attraction and retention allowances on their payslip, or retain their share of the billings after service fees. Retained revenue isn't paid through payroll. It goes to your own account and into your business activity statement.

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Lenders treat that as two separate income streams. Your hospital salary is read from your payslip like any other salary, and the private practice income is assessed as self-employed income, in the same way as a sole trader's above.

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Locum shifts on top of a salaried job work the same way. Medico lenders will usually consider that income, often after about three months. Other lenders may want financial statements and tax returns, as for any self-employed income.

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Queensland schemes: what a doctor can and cannot use

Queensland has some of the most generous first home settings in the country. None of the ones below has an income test, which matters for doctors because medical pay rises quickly. The limits are on the type of property and the price.

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Transfer duty on your first home

For your first home, the Queensland first home concession works like this:

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• A new home, or vacant land to build on: no transfer duty, with no price cap. This has applied since 1 May 2025.

• An established home: no transfer duty up to $700,000. Between $700,000 and $800,000 you get a partial rebate that shrinks as the price rises. From $800,000 there is no first home concession, and you pay the home concession rate instead.

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The main conditions are that it is your first home, you move in within a year and live there, and you are an Australian citizen or permanent resident.

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Some examples for an established first home:

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If the property is an investment, the general rate applies instead: $31,275 on an $850,000 purchase. You can run your own figures, including the Titles Office fees, in the Xandii stamp duty calculator, and the stamp duty guide explains each state's rules in plain terms.

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Source: Queensland Revenue Office rates, as verified in the Xandii calculator on 16 September 2026. Figures are indicative; your conveyancer confirms the duty payable.

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First Home Owner Grant: $30,000, new homes only

Queensland pays a $30,000 First Home Owner Grant for a new first home valued under $750,000, including land plus a build, for contracts signed from 20 November 2023. Established homes do not qualify. For most doctors buying close to a major hospital, that rules it out, since the stock near the big hospitals is mostly established.

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The 5% Deposit Scheme or a lender's LMI waiver

Lenders mortgage insurance (LMI) is a one-off premium most lenders charge when you borrow more than 80% of a property's value. It protects the lender, not you, and it can run into tens of thousands of dollars.

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There are two common ways a Brisbane doctor avoids it with a small deposit. The first is the Australian Government's 5% Deposit Scheme: since 1 October 2025 it has had no income limit and no cap on places, and in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast it covers first homes up to $1,000,000 ($700,000 elsewhere in Queensland) with a deposit from 5% and no LMI. The second is an LMI waiver that many lenders offer eligible medical professionals, sometimes at higher loan sizes than the Government cap allows, and for buyers who are not first home buyers. To qualify, lenders generally want you to hold current AHPRA registration and be working in your profession.

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For a doctor who qualifies for a waiver, Xaviera uses it rather than the 5% Deposit Scheme, and the reason is pricing. Lenders generally price a 5% Deposit Scheme loan as a 95% loan, while a medical LMI waiver usually gets the interest rate pricing the lender gives loans below 80% of the property's value. See refinancing without LMI if you already hold a loan and want to move it.

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Source: firsthomebuyers.gov.au (Housing Australia), read 30 September 2026.

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The Brisbane market in numbers

Brisbane is still up over the past year, but values are now falling: down 1.5% in September, the sharpest monthly fall of any capital, and 4.7% over the September quarter. Cotality's index to 30 September 2026:

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Source: Cotality Home Value Index, October 2026 release, results at 30 September 2026.

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Two things follow for a doctor. The median house is above the $1 million cap on the 5% Deposit Scheme, so a first home buyer relying on the scheme is usually looking at units, townhouses or suburbs further out. And at the median house price, transfer duty at the home concession rate is about $39,250, on top of a deposit. That is often the figure that decides whether to buy now or later.

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In a softer market the bank's valuation matters too. If it comes in under the contract price, your loan-to-value ratio rises, which can change whether an LMI waiver or the Government scheme applies.

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Worked example: a Brisbane registrar's first home

This is an illustration built from the figures above, not a quote. Say Dr Lee is a single registrar at the Princess Alexandra Hospital on a base salary of about $145,000. Last financial year overtime and on-call added about $25,000, so taxable income was around $170,000. She wants an established two-bedroom unit for $730,000 and has never owned a home.

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• First Home Owner Grant: not available, because the unit is established.

• Transfer duty: $6,555 with the first home concession, instead of $18,700 at the home concession rate. A saving of $12,145.

• Deposit and LMI: the price is under the $1,000,000 Brisbane cap, so the 5% Deposit Scheme would allow a $36,500 deposit with no LMI. But with current AHPRA registration she may qualify for a lender's medical LMI waiver instead, which usually comes with better pricing, so that is where Xaviera would start.

• How much she can borrow: this depends heavily on how the lender treats her $25,000 of overtime. Most lenders would count all of it, but some shade it to 80%. On Xaviera's figures, the gap between those lenders is about $30,000 to $37,000 of borrowing power.

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You can see indicative borrowing figures across a range of lenders for your own details with the Xandii home loan comparison tool, then talk the result through with Xaviera.

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Dr Lee's cash needed would be roughly the deposit, the $6,555 of duty, Titles Office fees and conveyancing, before any moving costs. Change the price to $850,000 and the picture moves sharply: the first home concession falls away, duty rises to $24,100, and the deposit grows with the price.

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Worked example: a GP in a Brisbane practice

Again, this is an illustration, not a quote. Say Dr Patel is a fellowed GP who has worked as a sole trader in a Brisbane practice for three years. Last financial year she billed $380,000 and paid the practice a 35% service fee of $133,000. After her own costs, such as insurance and registration fees, her taxable income was about $215,000. She wants an established house for $1,150,000 and has never owned a home.

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• Her income: a lender starts from the $215,000 on her tax return, not the $380,000 she billed, then adds back items such as depreciation.

• Transfer duty: $39,475 at the home concession rate. At this price there is no first home concession.

• Deposit and LMI: the price is over the $1,000,000 Brisbane cap, so the 5% Deposit Scheme is out. A lender's medical LMI waiver is the way to buy with less than a 20% deposit and no LMI.

• If she had just started: with three months in the practice instead of three years, she would need a medico lender that accepts a short ABN history, working from the practice's billing statements, her bank statements and her service agreement.

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What to have ready

If you are salaried:

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• Your two most recent payslips.

• Your employment contract, and your rotation or appointment letter if you are about to move.

• Your last two income statements or tax returns, and notices of assessment, if your overtime and allowances matter to the application.

• Your salary packaging statement (RemServ for Queensland Health staff), if you package.

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If you are a sole trader or practice owner:

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• Your last two years of personal tax returns and notices of assessment.

• Company or trust tax returns and the practice's financial statements, if you trade through one.

• Your service agreement and recent billing statements, if you work in someone else's practice or rooms, plus your bank statements and BAS.

• An ATO account statement showing no outstanding tax debt.

• If you are new to private practice: interim figures from your accountant, if the lender asks for them.

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Talk it through with Xaviera

Xaviera has spent the last seven years broking with medical professionals, and knows how lenders read a Queensland Health payslip at each stage of training, and how they read a GP's or specialist's private practice income. A short call is the quickest way to see which lenders suit your pay and which Queensland schemes you can use.