How these simple mistakes could be stopping you from buying your first home

Late-night withdrawals, gambling or lame jokes in bank transfer descriptions could reduce your chances of buying your first home, a mortgage broker has said.

Quang Huynh, a Sydney-based home lending expert, urged potential home buyers to treat their bank statements as their “public LinkedIn profile” because credit rating agencies will not look kindly on bad spending habits.

“Credit rating agencies are very old-fashioned and conservative when it comes to lending money,” Mr Huynh told 7Life.

“Remember, anything that your mother will frown upon should not appear on your bank statements.”

Quang Huynh (pictured), a Sydney-based home lending expert, urged potential home buyers to treat their bank statements as their “public LinkedIn profile” because credit rating agencies will not look kindly on bad spending habits

Mr Huynh urged first home buyers to do their research 12 months in advance so they can plan well and avoid nasty surprises (stock image)

Examples of bad spending habits Mr. Huynh gave included random cash withdrawals at odd times and pranks when transferring money to friends.

Even if a customer has a good mortgage deposit and strong lending power, he may be rejected on these small details because “first impressions matter.”

“To keep clean records, treat your mortgage statements as if they were your public LinkedIn profile,” says Mr. Huynh.

'It has to be professional and you are judged as a person by what you put on it.

“Your bank statement before you submit it to the bank should not be treated as your personal social media account where you post your racy photos or politically incorrect jokes so your friends can laugh.”

Mr Huynh gave the example of a friend who used a funny description like 'OnlyFans' when transferring money.

“If the persistent joke happens very often in the past three months, it is very difficult to explain to the bank's credit rating agency that the customer is just joking,” he said.

'The bank will seriously consider the customer spending money on a subscription to sexual content – and treat this as an ongoing obligation or outright regression.'

The mortgage broker, who bills himself on social media as “that home loan guy,” said potential homebuyers should also avoid using the word “loan” in the description of a wire transfer.

Examples of bad spending habits given by Mr Huynh included random cash withdrawals at odd times and prank calls when transferring money to friends (stock image)

“The bank may view this as a secret loan that was not provided in advance when applying for a home loan,” Mr Huynh said.

“Even if it's a small transaction or refund, it impacts the 'character' component of your application process. Undisclosed loans are a big no.”

He also warned potential homeowners to avoid gambling on their bank statements if they don't want to be rejected.

“Banks will affect a borrower's character score if he sees gambling, as this can have a negative effect on the mortgage application,” Huynh said.

'Lenders see them as gamblers and wonder whether their gambling behavior will affect their future repayments.

'If we (mortgage brokers) see gambling transactions in the last three months on a customer's bank statements and this happens almost weekly, we will usually tell them to stop this activity for three months and then come back to us (later) for lending'. '

Mr Huynh urged first home buyers to do their research 12 months in advance so they can plan well and avoid nasty surprises.