How Can I Access the Equity in My Home Without Taking Out a Loan?
Four non-debt ways to access home equity — home reversion, shared equity, fractional sale and downsizing — and how they compare with loan options.
There are four established ways to access the equity in your home without taking out a loan: home reversion, shared equity, a fractional sale, and downsizing. Home reversion is the sale of a share of your home’s future sale proceeds to a provider. Shared equity means a provider contributes money in exchange for a share of your home’s value. A fractional sale sells fractional interests in your property to investors, while downsizing means selling outright and buying somewhere less expensive.
None of these creates a debt — no interest rate, no repayment schedule, no serviceability test built on your income. What you give up instead is a share of your home’s current or future value — and the four options differ widely in how much, on what terms, and with whom.
What are the non-debt options for accessing home equity?
Each option raises money by selling something — a share, a fractional interest, or the whole property — rather than borrowing against it. That difference drives the costs, the eligibility rules, and what happens to future growth.
What is home reversion?
Home reversion is the sale of a share of your home’s future sale proceeds to a provider in exchange for a lump sum now. The provider pays a discounted amount because it may wait decades — until the home is sold — to receive anything back. Moneysmart lists home reversion, alongside reverse mortgages, as one of Australia’s two long-standing equity release forms. You stay in the home, with no interest and nothing to repay; the cost sits in the upfront discount and the share of future value you no longer own.
The discount is the headline number. In Moneysmart’s worked example, a provider buying a 20% share of the future value of a $500,000 home might offer between $37,000 and $78,000 today, depending on the owner’s age. ASIC research from 2005 found providers paying 35–60% of the market value of the share sold — dated research, but it shows the scale of the discount.
The Australian provider market is small. As at July 2026, at least one provider (Homesafe) operates, offering home reversion agreements in metropolitan Melbourne and Sydney.
What is a shared equity arrangement?
In a shared equity arrangement, a provider contributes capital in exchange for a proportional share of your home’s value, realised when the property is sold. In Australia the model is best known on the buying side — government schemes that co-purchase with eligible home buyers — rather than as a release option for existing owners. Where a provider does offer it to owners, it works like home reversion with different pricing: the provider’s return is tied to the home’s value at sale rather than fixed by an upfront discount.
What is a fractional sale?
A fractional sale divides a property’s economic value into small units and sells some to investors. The owner receives the proceeds as funding; investors receive a fractional economic interest — a defined share of the property’s future value. It is not a loan and not a sale of title. This is the model MyBrix operates, set out below.
Does downsizing count as accessing equity without a loan?
Yes — it is the simplest version. You sell the whole home, buy a less expensive one, and keep the difference. There is no provider and no ongoing arrangement — comparisons treat it as the baseline. The trade-offs are practical: agent fees, stamp duty on the next purchase, the effort of moving, and leaving a home you may have wanted to keep.
How do the non-debt options compare with borrowing against your home?
The debt routes are a cash-out refinance or home equity loan, a reverse mortgage, and the Commonwealth’s Home Equity Access Scheme (HEAS). The table puts both groups side by side.
| Option | Debt or sale? | Interest | Repayments | Main cost to you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home reversion | Sale of a share | None | None | Discount + future-value share sold |
| Shared equity | Sale of a share | None | None | Share of value at sale |
| Fractional sale | Sale of fractional interests | None | Fees per agreed terms | Fees + future value on sold interests |
| Downsizing | Full sale | None | None | Transaction and moving costs |
| Cash-out refinance / home equity loan | Debt | Yes | Yes, monthly | Interest and fees |
| Reverse mortgage | Debt | Yes, compounding | None until sale or death | Compounding interest |
| Home Equity Access Scheme | Debt (Commonwealth) | Yes, compounding | None during the loan | Compounding interest at the scheme rate |
Eligibility gates by option:
- Home reversion — provider age minimums. Moneysmart puts the baseline at 60 or older; Homesafe’s published minimums are 60+ in Victoria, and 55+ in New South Wales provided one owner is at least 60.
- Shared equity — scheme or provider criteria.
- Fractional sale — provider criteria plus a minimum owner holding.
- Downsizing — none; it is an ordinary market sale.
- Cash-out refinance / home equity loan — an income serviceability assessment.
- Reverse mortgage — lender age minimums, plus a statutory backstop: reverse mortgages taken out from 18 September 2012 carry negative equity protection, meaning you can’t end up owing the lender more than your home is worth (Moneysmart). Contracts signed before that date may not include it.
- HEAS — you or your partner must be of Age Pension age and qualify for an eligible pension (including at a zero rate), offer Australian real estate as security with adequate insurance, and not be bankrupt (Services Australia).
As at July 2026, the HEAS interest rate is 3.95% per year, compounding fortnightly. Each fortnight your combined pension and loan payments are capped at 150% of the maximum pension rate, and the maximum loan amount comes from an age-based formula applied to the value of the property offered as security — Services Australia publishes the full workings.
The loan-or-sale divide is regulatory as well as structural. A reverse mortgage is a credit product under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009. Home reversion is not a loan — no interest is charged — so it sits outside the consumer credit framework, and the negative equity protection above does not apply to a home reversion agreement.
Assumptions: an owner-occupied residential property; general product structures as described by Moneysmart (reverse mortgages, home reversion) and Services Australia (HEAS); provider costs and terms vary. Figures, where given, are as at July 2026.
The table shows structure, not ranking. Compounding interest can work out smaller or larger than a share of future growth — it depends on how long the arrangement runs, what the property’s value does, and each product’s terms. Those are calculations to work through with a licensed financial adviser.
How does a fractional sale work in practice?
Fractional sale is the newest of the four options, so the mechanics deserve a walkthrough. MyBrix — the platform behind this blog — is the worked example; terms below are as at July 2026, from the MyBrix Product Disclosure Statement.
Each property listed on MyBrix is divided into 10,000 Brix. A Brix is a fractional economic interest in the property — a financial product under Chapter 7 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), not a loan and not a slice of your title.
You remain the registered legal owner and keep living in the home; selling Brix does not affect your occupancy rights. You also keep the owner’s responsibilities: rates, insurance and maintenance. A first-ranking mortgage is intended to be registered at settlement, held on trust for all Brix holders.
The process runs: application, property assessment ($99), valuation by an independent licensed valuer — typically two to four weeks — then an Initial Brix Offering, the offer through which investors buy the property’s Brix and your funding is raised. You must keep a minimum holding once funding completes: generally 20% (2,000 of the 10,000 Brix), though lower holdings such as 10% may be approved case by case. The funding fee is either 5.0% of the funded amount upfront or 0.1% per month deferred — one or the other, agreed per listing — and the maximum term is 10 years.
The key terms in one place:
| MyBrix term | As at July 2026 |
|---|---|
| Property assessment fee | $99 |
| Funding fee | 5.0% upfront or 0.1% per month deferred — one or the other |
| Minimum owner holding | Generally 20% (2,000 of 10,000 Brix); 10% case by case |
| Maximum term | 10 years |
| Valuation timeframe | Typically 2–4 weeks |
Two features matter as much as the funding itself. You can sell the property at any time during the term, and you can buy back Brix at any time at a predetermined price agreed before listing. The cost deserves equal billing: once Brix are sold, the economic benefits attached to them — including a proportional share of any growth in value — belong to the investors who hold them unless you buy them back.
Investors see the same structure from the other side; our guide to fractional property investment explains how Brix work for buyers.
What factors matter when weighing these options?
Time. A debt product’s cost grows the longer it runs, regardless of the market. A sale-based option’s cost tracks the property’s value — up or down. Neither is automatically cheaper; the horizon decides.
Your income. A refinance requires passing a serviceability assessment. Sale-based options are structured around the property rather than your income — a structural difference, not a reason to prefer one.
Occupancy and control. Ask each provider precisely which rights you keep — to live in the home, to renovate, to rent it out, to sell. The answers differ by product and belong in writing before you commit.
Age Pension. Converting value held in your home into money or other assets can change how your entitlements are assessed. Payments can be affected in ways specific to your situation — contact Services Australia’s free Financial Information Service before proceeding.
Tax. Tax treatment differs between selling a share of your home, selling the whole home and borrowing. Tax outcomes depend on your circumstances — speak with a registered tax agent before acting.
Your estate. Every option reduces what your home eventually contributes to your estate — a debt to repay or a share already sold. Speak with an estate planning lawyer about how this interacts with your will and estate.
Where can you get reliable information?
Moneysmart’s equity release pages cover reverse mortgages and home reversion; Services Australia publishes the HEAS terms; provider disclosure documents carry product specifics — for MyBrix, the Product Disclosure Statement and Target Market Determination at mybrix.com.au. General information can map the options; it cannot weigh them for your situation. A licensed financial adviser can.
