Answers to common questions about the calculator, affordability grading, and paid suburb reports. Can't find what you need? Get in touch.
AffordaLive uses the 30% rule — if your housing cost exceeds 30% of your net income, the grade reflects that your housing is taking a larger-than-recommended share of income, even if you're not in deficit. This is the standard guideline used by financial planners and lenders as a starting benchmark, not a hard cutoff.
The 30% rule is a broad, one-size-fits-all guideline — it doesn't know your actual financial picture. If you have a high income, low debt, and substantial genuine leftover income despite grading above 30%, that grade may not reflect real financial stress in your specific situation. Use your own discretion, and if you're unsure, speak with a qualified financial adviser or mortgage broker who can assess your actual capacity — not just the percentage. AffordaLive's grading is a planning signal, not a verdict, and this isn't financial advice.
Our prefilled data comes from ABS Census and suburb benchmark data, upgraded to Domain listing data where available. For very specific or recent figures, switch to Advanced mode and enter your own numbers. If you think a suburb is significantly wrong, please let us know via the contact form so we can investigate.
The Australian Government's Home Guarantee Scheme allows eligible first home buyers to purchase a property with as little as a 5% deposit without paying Lender's Mortgage Insurance (LMI). Tick the First Home Buyer checkbox in the calculator to see your results with LMI waived. Check nhfic.gov.au for income and property price eligibility caps.
Enter your net (take-home) income — the amount that lands in your bank account after tax and other deductions. If you and a partner are both earning, add both net amounts together for the combined household figure. You can use the ATO's tax calculator to convert gross to net.
Your financial profile, full analysis of up to 3 chosen suburbs, up to 3 recommended nearby alternatives, an affordability score out of 100 for each, deposit scenarios at 5/10/20%, a rent-vs-buy comparison, purchase price scenarios, interest rate stress testing, a hidden costs breakdown, and a step-by-step action plan. Available as a Rent Report or Buy Report. See the full feature list for complete detail.
Every suburb in a report is scored on two weighted factors: affordability (60%) — mortgage or rent as a percentage of your income — and value-for-money (40%) — price relative to the surrounding regional benchmark. A high score means a suburb is both comfortably affordable for you specifically and reasonably priced against similar nearby areas.
Most Australian suburbs don't have enough sales or rental volume to generate an independently reliable median price. Where that's the case, we use the verified price from the nearest suburb with confirmed data rather than a broad state-wide average — a real neighbouring suburb's price is a far better estimate than a number covering an entire state. This is always disclosed directly on the suburb's page, with the source suburb and distance named.
Not yet — both are in development. The Basic Report ($9.99) is fully available now. Get in touch if you'd like to be notified when Premium and the subscription launch.
No. AffordaLive — the free calculator and all paid reports — is an indicative planning tool only. All figures are estimates based on publicly available data and standard assumptions. Always consult a qualified financial adviser, mortgage broker, or conveyancer before making any property decision. See our full disclaimer.
No. All calculator computations happen in your browser — nothing is stored on our servers. We don't sell data or run ads. See our privacy policy for full detail.