Self-Employed and Growing Faster Than Your Financials Show? You Might Be Closer to Home Loan Approval Than You Think

Being self-employed comes with freedom, flexibility, and the opportunity to grow something on your own terms, but when it comes to getting a home loan, it can often feel like you’re penalised for not being on a payroll. The good news? That’s changing. Whether you're working with a Gold Coast Mortgage Broker, a Brisbane Mortgage Broker, or a Mortgage Broker for Sole Traders, you might be far closer to loan approval than you think.

Whether you’re a sole trader, director of a company, or running your own side hustle, you may not need to wait two years to prove you’re “mortgage-ready.” Thanks to shifts in lending policy, several banks and specialist lenders, including those we work with as a trusted Sunshine Coast Mortgage Broker, are now open to assessing your borrowing capacity using just one year of financials, especially if your business is growing fast.

Why One-Year Financials Matter

Traditionally, lenders looked at your last two years of business tax returns and averaged them to work out how much you could borrow. That works fine if your income is stable, but let’s be real, for most business owners, especially early on, it’s not.

Maybe your first year was a slow start while you got off the ground. Perhaps you reinvested heavily or took time off during the COVID-19 pandemic. Maybe you’ve only recently hired staff and are now scaling fast. In any of these situations, averaging two years together can unfairly drag down your borrowing power, even if your latest figures clearly show growth.

That's where the one-year policy changes everything. By assessing your income based on just your most recent financial year, lenders can recognise your upward momentum, not penalise you for past slowdowns.

Real Talk: Rosie the Florist

Let’s make this real with a scenario we see all the time.

Rosie is a florist on the Sunshine Coast. After a tough first year in business, she’s turned a corner. She’s built relationships with wedding venues, set up a thriving online store, and is now earning $120,000 annually.

She’s found a home she loves for $750,000 and has a 20% deposit ready to go. However, when she spoke to her everyday bank, let’s call them Bank A, they informed her that she couldn’t get approved. Why? Because she had a $10,000 loss in her first year, and they still average that with her current profit, despite her growth.

What they didn’t ask about were the business expenses she’s no longer carrying. Or the new contracts she’s locked in. Or how the $2,000 a month in car finance tied to her ABN shouldn’t count against her personal loan serviceability.

Here’s what her options looked like:

• Bank A: Needed two years of financials and included her business debts in the assessment. Rosie could only borrow $70,000.

• Bank B: Accepted one year of financials, but still included her business debts. Rosie could borrow $451,000.

• Bank C: Accepted one year of financials and did not include her business debts. Rosie could borrow $674,000.

That’s a difference of over $600,000, all based on choosing the right lender with the right policy.

Why Your Everyday Bank Might Not Be Your Best Option

Banks have varying risk appetites, particularly when it comes to self-employed clients. Some are conservative and box-ticking. Others are policy-savvy and open to nuanced assessments, the kind that take your full situation into account.

The key is working with a mortgage broker who thoroughly understands self-employed lending. We’re not just comparing rates, we’re looking at:

• Which lenders accept one-year financials

• Who ignores company debt tied to ABN's

• How your tax structure (PAYG vs drawings vs dividends) affects policy

• Which banks have faster approvals or lower documentation requirements

What This Means For You

If your business is growing and you’ve been told “not yet” by your bank, don’t stop there. You might be closer to home ownership than you realise.

In fact, by using a smarter strategy and aligning with the right lender, many self-employed clients find they:

• Can buy sooner than expected

• Qualify for a higher amount

• Avoid unnecessary delays or paperwork

• Reduce their risk of being knocked back due toa rigid policy

Key Benefits of the New Self-Employed Lending Landscape

One Year of Financials May Be Enough: Many lenders now accept just your most recent financial year if it reflects stable or increasing income.

Company Debts Can Be Excluded: Debts under your business (e.g., ABN-registered car finance or credit cards) may not be counted against your personal capacity with the right lender.

More Choice = More Strategy: With access to over 50 lenders, we can find solutions that your current bank may not offer.

You're Not Alone: We work with sole traders, business owners, contractors, and freelancers across various industries — and help them navigate a clearer path to approval.

The Bottom Line

If your accountant has just finished your latest tax return, now is the perfect time to explore your borrowing power. You might not need to wait another 12 months. And you don’t have to rely on a bank that only sees one version of your story.

At I Know The Broker, we build tailored lending strategies for business owners like you, not cookie-cutter templates. If you’re self-employed and ready to take the next step, we’ll walk you through it, policy by policy, lender by lender, until we land the outcome that gets you home.

Let’s see what’s possible, even if your numbers are still catching up to your ambition.