The direct answer is 10 to 20 per cent of the price, plus buying costs. The faster answer is that your home’s equity can cover it without touching your savings.
By the Chase Wealth Australia advisory team · 10 July 2026
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Here is the answer most people are looking for: to buy an investment property in Australia, plan on a deposit of 10 to 20 per cent of the purchase price, plus roughly 5 per cent on top for buying costs. On a $600,000 property that means $60,000 to $120,000 for the deposit and about $30,000 in costs. It is a real number, and for a lot of homeowners it is exactly why a first or second investment property keeps sliding onto the “one day” list.
There is a second answer that far fewer people get told: if you already own a home, you may not need to save any of it. The equity you have built can do the same job a cash deposit does, which is why this guide covers both the standard deposit and the equity route that skips the saving entirely. Every figure below is shown and dated.
Lenders think about a deposit as a share of the purchase price, so the figure scales with the property. The band that matters is 10 to 20 per cent. Twenty per cent is the level most Australian lenders will lend to without charging lenders mortgage insurance, and it is the deposit that keeps your borrowing cheapest and your buffer widest. Ten per cent is the practical floor: it is possible, but it triggers lenders mortgage insurance and leaves you with a larger loan to service.
Where you sit in that band is a decision, not a fixed rule. A larger deposit lowers your loan, avoids insurance and gives you room if values move. A smaller deposit puts less cash on the table and brings the purchase forward, at the cost of the insurance premium and higher repayments. Here is how the deposit lands at three common price points, with the buying costs alongside it:
| Purchase price | Deposit (10–20%) | Costs (~5%) | Total needed |
|---|---|---|---|
| $500,000 | $50,000 to $100,000 | $25,000 | $75,000 to $125,000 |
| $600,000 | $60,000 to $120,000 | $30,000 | $90,000 to $150,000 |
| $700,000 | $70,000 to $140,000 | $35,000 | $105,000 to $175,000 |
That “total needed” column is the honest figure, because the deposit is only part of the cash you have to find. The rest is the costs line, and it is the one most first-time investors underestimate.
Budget roughly 5 per cent of the purchase price on top of the deposit for the costs of buying. Stamp duty is by far the largest item, and investors pay the full rate with no owner-occupier or first-home concession in either of the states we buy in. On a $600,000 purchase in Queensland the general transfer duty is about $20,025, and on a $650,000 purchase in Western Australia the residential duty is about $24,890 (state revenue office scales, 2026).
The rest of the 5 per cent is made up of the smaller lines that still add up: conveyancing or legal fees, building and pest inspections, loan establishment and valuation fees, and lenders mortgage insurance if your deposit sits under 20 per cent. None of these is optional, and a purchase planned on the deposit alone tends to come up short at exactly the wrong moment. The clean way to think about it: deposit plus about 5 per cent is the number you actually have to fund, whether that funding comes from cash or from equity.
If you own a home, you may be able to fund that entire deposit-and-costs figure without saving a dollar of new cash, because the equity in your home can stand in for a cash deposit. Instead of building savings over years, you borrow against the value you have already built, and that released money does the job the deposit would have done.
The short version of the maths: the equity a lender will let you use is roughly your home’s value multiplied by 80 per cent, minus your current loan balance. On an $800,000 home with a $500,000 loan, that is $640,000 minus $500,000, or $140,000 of usable equity to put to work. Your home loan increases by the amount you release, the new property carries its own separate loan, and the rent helps carry the combined repayments.
There is more to the release than the headline number: how the loan is structured, how the interest is treated at tax time, and the risks to weigh before you sign. Those belong in the deep guide rather than here. If the equity route is what you came for, read the complete guide to using equity to buy an investment property, and to see your own figure, work out your usable equity in the calculator.
Run that $140,000 forward through the same deposit rule. Using a 10 to 20 per cent deposit plus about 5 per cent in costs, $140,000 of usable equity covers the deposit and buying costs on an investment property in the $550,000 to $700,000 range. At the conservative end that is a 20 per cent deposit on a $550,000 property with costs cleared; at the stretch end it is a 10 per cent deposit on $700,000 with lenders mortgage insurance in the mix.
That band is not abstract. In the corridors we buy in, it reaches Perth entry suburbs such as Armadale at a $630,000 median (REIWA, year to June 2026), and at a 10 per cent deposit it stretches to Ipswich entry suburbs like Leichhardt and One Mile that sit under $700,000. The same equity that felt like a locked number on a statement turns out to be a deposit on a real property in a growth market.
Enter your home’s value and loan balance to see your usable equity and the price range it could fund.
Open the Equity Unlock CalculatorLenders mortgage insurance is the lever that lets you buy on a 10 per cent deposit rather than waiting to reach 20 per cent. It is a one-off cost, roughly $13,000 to $20,000 on a $650,000 property at a 90 per cent lending limit, and it is usually capitalised onto the loan rather than paid upfront. In exchange, it roughly halves the deposit you need to find, which can be the difference between buying this year and buying in three.
Treat it as a priced decision rather than a mistake to avoid. The real question is whether the growth you would capture by buying sooner outweighs the premium and the higher repayments that come with a larger loan. In a market moving quickly, paying to enter earlier can pay for itself; in a flat one, the case is weaker. It is a strategy call, and it turns on the market you are buying into, not a blanket rule.
Having the deposit, whether in cash or in equity, is necessary but not sufficient. Before releasing anything, a lender tests your income against the repayments at your actual rate plus APRA’s 3 percentage point buffer. Plenty of homeowners hold the equity and still hear a no at the first bank they ask, because serviceability, not the deposit, is where the decision is really made. Lender choice and loan structure move that answer, which is why the deposit is the start of the conversation rather than the end of it.
That is also where the bigger picture comes in. If the deposit maths works but buying where you want to live does not, some investors rent where they want to be and put their deposit into a higher-growth market instead: the approach we cover in our guide to rentvesting. And if you want the full journey from deposit to settlement, how to buy an investment property in Australia walks through every step in order. The deposit is the ticket in; the strategy around it decides whether the purchase works.
A strategy session tests your deposit and equity position against your income, buffer and goals, and shows you what it could buy in Brisbane or Perth. Bring your calculator result and we will pressure-test it against live lending conditions.
Book a strategy sessionThe figures in this guide are general information; a strategy session is where they become yours.
