Can I get approved with a 10% deposit and no genuine savings?
Yes, it is possible — but two separate hurdles are in play. A deposit under 20% triggers lenders mortgage insurance (LMI), and separately, some lenders require part of your deposit to be “genuine savings” held over three months. If your 10% came from a bonus, tax refund or gift rather than steady saving, you need a lender that accepts alternatives such as rental history — or a family guarantee to avoid LMI altogether.
The trap most brokers miss
The trap is confusing the two hurdles. Borrowers are told they were declined for “no genuine savings” and assume they need to save for another year, when in fact a different lender would accept their rental history today — or a partial guarantee would remove the LMI cost entirely.
What you actually need
- Evidence of your deposit and where it came from
- Twelve months of on-time rental ledger or statements (accepted as genuine savings by some lenders)
- If using a guarantor: a family member with sufficient equity willing to provide a limited guarantee
- A clear comparison of the LMI cost versus a guarantor structure
Illustrative scenarios
Teaching examples built from typical situations to show how we approach the problem. Numbers only, never names.
First home buyer — small deposit, no genuine savings
A couple had a 10% deposit largely from a tax refund and a bonus, with little of it held for the three months lenders often expect as genuine savings.
Several lenders declined the deposit as not “genuine savings”, and a sub-20% deposit triggered lenders mortgage insurance.
We matched them to a lender that accepts rental history as evidence of genuine savings, and modelled a family guarantee option to compare the LMI cost against a partial guarantee.
The purchase proceeded with the deposit accepted and a clear comparison of the LMI-versus-guarantor trade-off — an illustration of policy fit, not a fixed result.
Illustrative example only. This is a teaching scenario built from typical borrower situations to show how we approach the problem — not a record of a specific client, and not a prediction of your result. Your outcome depends on your lender, your financials and current lending policy.
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