A reverse mortgage is a loan: you borrow against your home, interest compounds on the balance, and the debt is repaid — usually from the sale proceeds — when the home is eventually sold. Selling a share of your home is a sale: you receive money now in exchange for part of your home’s future value — no debt, no interest; the cost is the future value you give up. That one difference — debt versus sale — drives everything else: what each option costs, which legal protections apply, who is eligible, and what is left for you or your estate when the home changes hands.

Neither route is automatically cheaper. A compounding loan can cost less or more than a share of future value, depending on how long the arrangement runs, what your property’s value does, and each product’s terms. This guide sets out both structures and puts them side by side, drawing on Moneysmart — ASIC’s free consumer website — and MyBrix’s published terms.

How does a reverse mortgage work?

A reverse mortgage is a loan secured against your home, structured so that no regular repayments are required. Interest is added to the balance and compounds — interest is charged on the interest already added — until the loan is repaid, usually when the home is sold or the borrower dies. You remain the owner throughout, and any growth in the home’s value belongs to you; the cost is the debt growing against it. Moneysmart explains the structure in detail.

Reverse mortgages carry statutory protections that sale-based options do not. They are credit products under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, which places them under Australia’s consumer credit rules. Reforms in 2012 added responsible-lending obligations and required lenders to show borrowers projections of their home equity before signing.

The strongest safeguard is negative equity protection. For reverse mortgages taken out from 18 September 2012, the law ensures “you can’t end up owing the lender more than your home is worth”, as Moneysmart puts it. Contracts signed before that date may not include this protection, so older agreements are worth checking.

Each lender sets its own interest rate, fees and criteria, including minimum ages — none of those figures is fixed by law. There is also a government scheme in the same family: the Home Equity Access Scheme (HEAS), a voluntary loan scheme run through Services Australia. As at July 2026 the HEAS interest rate is 3.95% per year, compounding fortnightly, and each fortnight your combined pension and loan payments are capped at 150% of the maximum pension rate. Eligibility requires you or your partner to be of Age Pension age and qualify for an eligible pension — including at a zero rate — with Australian real estate as security.

What does selling a share of your home mean?

Selling a share means receiving money now in exchange for part of your home’s value. It is a sale, not a loan: there is no interest because there is no debt, and the cost sits in the share of value you no longer hold. Australia has two forms — home reversion, the long-standing model, and fractional sale, the newer one.

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. In Moneysmart’s worked example, current as at July 2026, 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 your 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.

Because home reversion is not a loan and charges no interest, it sits outside the consumer credit framework. The negative equity protection that covers post-2012 reverse mortgages does not apply to a home reversion agreement. The provider market is small: as at July 2026, at least one provider (Homesafe) operates, offering agreements in metropolitan Melbourne and Sydney.

What is a fractional sale?

A fractional sale divides a property’s economic value into small units and sells some of them to investors. On MyBrix, each property is divided into 10,000 Brix — the MyBrix terms in this section are as at July 2026, from the Product Disclosure Statement. 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 the title. Investors who buy Brix hold an economic interest; they do not become owners of your home.

You remain the registered legal owner and keep living in the home — selling Brix does not affect your occupancy rights. Rates, insurance and maintenance stay your responsibility. A first-ranking mortgage is intended to be registered at settlement, held on trust for all Brix holders.

Two terms shape the arrangement. 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 — and the maximum term is 10 years. You can sell the property at any time, and you can buy back Brix at any time at a predetermined price agreed before listing. Once Brix are sold, though, the economic benefits attached to them belong to the investors who hold them unless you buy them back.

The owner-side fees, as at July 2026:

MyBrix fee (as at July 2026)	Amount
Property assessment	$99 once
Manual assessment (licensed valuer)	$999 once
Funding application	$1,499–$1,999 per listing
Funding fee	5.0% upfront or 0.1% per month
Occupation fee	0.2%–0.5% per month of funded amount

The funding fee is one or the other — 5.0% of the funded amount upfront, or 0.1% per month deferred — agreed per listing. The application fee is $1,999 with a manual assessment or $1,499 without, and the occupation fee is an ongoing monthly charge while the arrangement runs.

Fees include GST, are generally non-refundable, and some may be payable even if funding doesn’t proceed. The full schedule sits in the Product Disclosure Statement and Target Market Determination at mybrix.com.au.

Investors see the same structure from the other side — our guide to fractional property investment explains how Brix work for buyers.

Reverse mortgage vs selling a share: how do they compare?

Assumptions behind this table: an owner-occupied residential property; a reverse mortgage as described on Moneysmart, taken out after 18 September 2012 so negative equity protection applies; a share sale structured either as home reversion (per Moneysmart) or as a MyBrix fractional sale on the published terms above, as at July 2026. Individual lender rates, fees and provider terms vary — the table compares structure, not price.

	Reverse mortgage	Selling a share
What it is	Loan secured against your home	Sale of an economic interest
Interest	Yes — compounds until repaid	None — there is no debt
Regular repayments	None required	None; agreed fees apply
Ownership and title	You remain the owner	Registered legal owner (MyBrix model)
Future value	All yours, less the growing debt	Future value of sold share: investors’
Statutory protections	Negative equity protection (post-2012 loans)	Consumer credit protections do not apply
Exit	Repay the loan, usually at sale	Buy back the share, or sell
Regulated as	Credit product (NCCP Act 2009)	Financial product or property transaction

Three rows deserve unpacking. Ownership: the “registered legal owner” entry states the MyBrix fractional model, where you stay on title; home reversion agreements have their own structures, and a provider’s documents set out exactly what is sold and what you keep.

Future value: the two options use different maths. A reverse mortgage’s cost follows a compounding-interest curve — the longer it runs, the faster the balance grows, whatever the property market does. A share sale’s cost tracks the property’s value: if the home’s value rises, the share you sold is worth more to the investors who hold it; if it falls, less. Neither curve is knowable in advance, which is why neither option is automatically cheaper.

Protections: negative equity protection exists because a debt can outgrow a home; it is a genuine statutory safeguard, and post-2012 reverse mortgage borrowers have it by law. A sale cannot put you into compounding debt — there is no loan balance to grow, though agreed fees and any buyback obligations still apply — and it is not covered by consumer credit law either. For a financial product such as Brix, the protections instead come from the Corporations Act 2001 disclosure regime: a Product Disclosure Statement and Target Market Determination setting out features, fees and risks before you commit.

What does each option mean for your estate?

Both options reduce what your home eventually contributes to your estate — that is the price of accessing the money earlier. With a reverse mortgage, the loan and its compounded interest are repaid, usually from the sale proceeds, before anything passes to your estate; for post-2012 contracts, negative equity protection means the debt cannot exceed the home’s value. With a share sale, the sold portion is already gone — your estate keeps the value of what you still hold.

On the MyBrix model (terms as at July 2026), if the arrangement reaches the end of its term — 10 years at most — the remaining Brix must be bought back at the pre-agreed price, or the property is sold at market value and the proceeds distributed proportionally to all Brix holders. Exactly how any equity release arrangement is handled on death depends on the contract and your circumstances. Speak with an estate planning lawyer about how this interacts with your will and estate.

Which factors matter when choosing between them?

Time horizon. The longer a compounding loan runs, the larger the debt; the longer a share sale runs, the more the outcome depends on what the property market does over those years. Different horizons genuinely favour different structures — which is a calculation, not a slogan.

Age and eligibility. Reverse mortgage lenders set their own minimum ages. Home reversion has provider minimums too: as at July 2026, Homesafe’s published thresholds are 60+ in Victoria and 55+ in New South Wales provided one owner is at least 60. HEAS requires Age Pension age. MyBrix eligibility, as at July 2026, is property-based — owner-occupied residential is the primary case, some investment properties may be eligible, a financial assessment may be required, and valuation by an independent licensed valuer typically takes two to four weeks.

Protections. A post-2012 reverse mortgage carries negative equity protection by law. A share sale relies on the contract and, for financial products, the disclosure regime — read the documents before signing anything.

Your 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.

Where to go from here. Moneysmart — ASIC’s free consumer website — covers reverse mortgages and home reversion in detail, Services Australia publishes the HEAS terms, and provider documents carry product specifics. Our guide to accessing home equity without a loan maps the wider set of options. General information can lay out the structures; weighing them against your own home, age and plans is a job for a licensed financial adviser.