Home Loans for Teachers, July 2026

Home loans for teachers & education staff

Teachers and education workers have a home-loan option most borrowers don't: Teachers Mutual Bank and its sister brand UniBank are customer-owned mutuals built specifically for the education sector. Because a mutual returns profit to members instead of shareholders, their rates often undercut the big four, the sharpest profession-mutual variable rate we're tracking today is 6.09%. The same group runs Firefighters Mutual Bank and Health Professionals Bank for other essential workers.

That said, a profession mutual isn't automatically the cheapest, it depends on your deposit, the product and the current cycle. The right move is to put the teacher-mutual rate side-by-side with the wider market and sort by the comparison rate (the statutory true-cost figure that folds in fees), which is exactly what the table above does.

Which lenders specialise in teachers?

Five Australian lenders are built around education workers: Teachers Mutual Bank and UniBank (the same customer-owned group, serving schools and universities nationally), Bank First (the Victorian teacher mutual), and their sister brands Firefighters Mutual Bank and Health Professionals Bank for other essential workers. All are mutuals, so profits return to members through pricing.

• Teachers Mutual Bank — serving education since 1966; open to current and former education workers and their families. Merged with Australian Mutual Bank in May 2026, lifting the group to around $14 billion in assets.
• UniBank— the same group's brand for university and research staff and students.
• Bank First— founded by Victorian teachers in the early 1970s as Victoria Teachers Credit Union, renamed Bank First in 2017. Runs one of the sector's standout LMI waivers for education and healthcare workers with as little as a 10% deposit.
• Firefighters Mutual Bank and Health Professionals Bank — the group's brands for fire-and-emergency and healthcare workers, on the same banking licence.

A teacher can also use any mainstream lender, and the mainstream market sometimes beats the mutuals on price. The live table above ranks both side by side so the comparison does itself.

Can teachers get lender's mortgage insurance waived?

Sometimes, yes. A small number of lenders run LMI waivers or reductions for teachers, and the standout is Bank First, which waives LMI for eligible education and healthcare workers with as little as a 10% deposit, meaning borrowing to 90% of the property value without the premium. On a $600,000 purchase with a 10 to 15% deposit, avoiding LMI can save roughly $10,000 or more in one hit.

The catch is that eligibility rules differ by lender and change over time: most require a permanent teaching position or a consistent contract history, a minimum deposit (often 10 to 15%), and standard credit checks, and some waive LMI fully while others only discount it. Because a waived-LMI loan at a slightly higher rate can still beat a cheaper rate plus a five-figure LMI premium, compare the total cost, not just the headline rate.

How do lenders treat casual and part-time teaching income?

Permanent full-time and part-time teachers are assessed like any salaried borrower. Casual relief teachers usually need to show consistency, commonly 6 to 12 months of regular casual income with the same employer or agency, before a lender counts it in full. Allowances and higher-duties payments may be counted partially or fully depending on the lender, so two lenders can reach quite different borrowing figures from the same payslips. If your income mix is complex, model scenarios with the borrowing power calculator first.

Teacher home loan FAQ