Turn Green Square Apartment Equity Into a Family Home Upgrade

If you already own a Green Square or Zetland apartment, you can often use its equity as the deposit for a family home by refinancing up to around 80% LVR and taking a separate equity split for the new purchase. The real work is getting the valuation right, keeping your risk inside safe LVR bands, and making sure the post‑upgrade repayments still fit your life.

This guide focuses on one thing: turning Green Square equity into a bigger home without over‑stretching.

Checking how much equity your Green Square apartment can safely release.

1. Understand how much Green Square equity you can safely use

1.1 What “usable equity” really means

Equity is the property value minus your loan. Usable equity is how much a lender will let you tap while staying inside their LVR rules and your borrowing capacity.

Most mainstream lenders are most comfortable at or under 80% LVR on apartments to avoid LMI.

Usable equity ≈ (Property value × target LVR) − current loan

For Green Square and Zetland, different lenders can give very different valuations and maximum LVRs for the same building, sometimes changing usable equity by tens of thousands (see /insights/local-green-square-broker-building-knowledge).

1.2 Worked example: refinancing your Zetland unit for a house deposit

Assume:

• Current unit value: $1,000,000 (bank valuation)
• Current loan: $550,000
• Target LVR: 80%

Maximum loan at 80% LVR: 0.80 × $1,000,000 = $800,000
Usable equity: $800,000 − $550,000 = $250,000

That $250k can usually be set up as a separate split and used as part or all of the deposit and costs on a family home.

If a second lender values the unit at $950,000, your usable equity drops to about $210,000, which can change which suburbs or price points are realistic this year.

2. Structure the upgrade: sell, keep or rent out the unit?

2.1 Three main paths

Upgrading from a Green Square apartment to a family home usually comes down to one of three structures.

If you’re only moving from one apartment to the next, see /insights/upgrading-apartment-green-square-zetland-guide for apartment‑to‑apartment scenarios.

2.2 Keeping the Green Square unit as an investment

Keeping the unit and renting it out can work if:

• Your combined loans still pass serviceability at a rate at least 3% above the actual rate (APRA buffer).
• You’ve allowed for vacancy, strata increases and maintenance.
• The loan splits clearly separate non‑deductible (new home) and investment (unit) purposes.

Loan purpose, not the security, drives interest deductibility. If you mix home and investment purposes in one big split, your tax life gets messy later.