Understand How Lenders
Actually Assess Your Scenario.
A clear explanation of how Australian lenders evaluate income, assets, debts, and policy — so you can understand what’s really possible.
REAL EXPERIENCE
Built from real lending experience —
not theory or comparison site content.
Virginia Graham Riches — mortgage broker since 2004, former ANZ interest rate dealer.
Used by borrowers, brokers, and professionals to understand:
Understand Borrowers
Scenario Mapping
Data-Driven Logic
Lending Rules
This site is for you if:
This site is for you if:
The Core Idea
Most people are told:
“You can borrow X”
Very few are told:
why
Model Mortgages breaks lending down into the five things lenders actually assess — so you can see what’s driving your outcome.
The Five Assessment Pillars
These five factors combine to determine what’s possible.
Income & Serviceability
Whether your income can sustain repayments under lender stress conditions — not just at today's rate. Includes income recognition, shading treatment, stress buffers, and net surplus calculations.
Expenses & Commitments
How lenders measure your outgoings — including benchmark figures that may replace what you actually spend. Includes HEM benchmarks, existing debts, HECS obligations, and credit card limits.
Assets & Equity
Whether your deposit or equity is genuinely usable, and how your capital position affects leverage settings. Includes genuine savings, gift treatment, equity release, and LVR buffers.
Security & Collateral Risk
How the property itself shapes what lenders will offer — independent of income or deposit. Includes property type, location, zoning, size, and valuation risk.
Borrower Profile & Policy Sensitivity
How your employment type, residency status, income structure, and credit history interact with individual lender policy settings. Includes expat settings, contract income, entity structures, and credit conduct.
What most people miss
Two people can look identical on paper…
…and get completely different outcomes.
Why?
- Lenders assess income differently
- Policies vary significantly between lenders
- Small structural differences change decisions
This site shows you those differences.
The Canonical Lending Questions
Beneath every lending decision is a set of recurring assessment questions — applied consistently by lenders regardless of borrower type, loan purpose, or property value.
Model Mortgages documents ten of these question clusters and explains the assessment logic within each one. These are not theoretical constructs. They represent the actual decision contexts lenders work through on every Australian loan application.
Decision Contexts
Standardised logic applied consistently across the Australian lending market.
AUTHORSHIP
About This Site
Model Mortgages was founded and is authored by Virginia Graham Riches.
With a career spanning over two decades in the Australian finance industry—from working as an ANZ dealer to operating as a specialist mortgage broker since 2004—Virginia created this platform to bridge the information gap between lenders and borrowers.
The goal is simple: to document the logic of lending assessment so that borrowers can approach finance with the same structural understanding as the assessors themselves
Part of the Model Mortgages Lending Framework
This page forms part of the Model Mortgages structured reference framework explaining how Australian lenders commonly assess income, expenses, assets, security risk and policy sensitivity under Australian credit policy settings.
The information provided is general educational information only. It does not constitute credit advice, financial advice, legal advice or a recommendation of any kind. It has been prepared without considering any individual's objectives, financial situation or needs, and must not be relied upon when making borrowing, investment or financial decisions. Lending policies and outcomes vary between lenders and individual circumstances.
Model Mortgages Pty Ltd operates under Australian Credit Licence 387460.
Continue exploring the framework:
→ Explore the Five Assessment Pillars
→ Browse Canonical Lending Questions
© 2026 Model Mortgages Pty Ltd | Australian Credit Licence 387460 | ABN 82 108 681 063
General educational information only. Personal credit assistance is provided only through separate authorised engagement with Model Mortgages Pty Ltd.