Six weeks into a new job, and the right house appears

The situation

Permanent full-time employment, same industry and same role type as the previous eight years, no break between jobs, a signed contract with the new salary stated, and one payslip in hand. A 15 per cent deposit saved, clean credit, no consumer debt.

The problem

Probation is a policy trigger, not a risk assessment. Plenty of lenders apply a blanket rule, three or six months served, regardless of what sits underneath it. Applied to this file, that rule ignores eight unbroken years in the same field and treats a promotion as though it were a career change.

What made it difficult

Lender policy on probation splits into recognisable camps. Some require probation completed, full stop. Some accept probationary employment where the role is in the same industry with continuous prior service, which describes this borrower exactly. Some look at the contract terms, whether termination requires notice, rather than the probation label itself. And some treat a salaried permanent role differently from casual or contract work, which our casual employment guide covers separately.

What a broker assesses

The employment contract first: permanent versus fixed-term, notice provisions, and whether the salary is base or includes variable components. Continuity of income across the job change, because an unbroken run in one industry is the strongest argument available here. The size of the deposit, since a stronger deposit widens the lender list on any policy-sensitive file. And the timing question: whether a short wait materially improves the outcome, or simply costs the house.

The lending considerations

Probation files reward preparation and punish improvisation. Applying to a blanket-rule lender produces a decline that sits on the credit file and reads badly to the next assessor, so the order of applications matters more here than on an ordinary purchase. Where the new role includes bonus or commission that has not yet been paid, most lenders will not count it at all until there is history, so the assessment runs on base salary alone and the budget should too. A change from permanent to contract work at the same time is a different and harder file again.

What borrowers can take from this

A new job is usually a strengthening of your position that one lender's calendar refuses to see. If you have continuous service in the same field and a permanent contract, ask which lenders read that continuity rather than accepting the first blanket answer. And do it before you make an offer, not after the contract is signed with a finance clause running.