How a deposit changes your bond size, monthly repayment and total interest.
Monthly repayment
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Loan amount
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Total interest
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Upfront cash
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The deposit does two jobs at once
A deposit on a South African home loan is working two levers, not one. The obvious lever is the loan size: every rand you put down is a rand the bank does not lend you, so the bond shrinks and the monthly repayment falls. The quieter lever is the interest rate the bank offers. A buyer asking for a 100 percent bond is asking the lender to carry all the risk, and the rate quoted above prime reflects that. Put down ten or twenty percent and you usually earn a sharper rate, because the bank's loan-to-value ratio improves. This calculator models the first lever directly and lets you test the second by changing the rate yourself.
What it adds, and what most repayment calculators miss, is the cash you actually need on the day. Transfer duty, the tax SARS levies on the purchase of property, lands on top of your deposit, and it is payable in cash before the property registers in your name. That is the number that surprises first-time buyers.
A R2 million home with ten percent down
Run the defaults: a R2,000,000 home, a ten percent deposit, an 11.5 percent annual rate, over 20 years. Ten percent is R200,000, so the bank lends R1,800,000. Using the standard amortising formula the monthly repayment comes to R19,195.73. Over 240 payments you repay far more than you borrowed, and the total interest works out at about R2,806,976, more than the loan itself. The transfer duty on a R2,000,000 purchase, under the sliding scale this calculator applies, is R33,786, because the first R1,210,000 is duty free and three percent applies to the slice above it up to R1,663,800, then six percent on the rest to R2,000,000.
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The chart shows how the total cost breaks down across deposit, loan interest, and transfer duty.
Budget for the costs the price tag hides
Transfer duty is the biggest extra, but it is not the only one. You also pay conveyancing attorney fees on the transfer, bond registration costs to register the home loan itself, and a deeds office fee, which together can add tens of thousands of rand. This tool folds transfer duty into the upfront figure so the number is honest, but treat the result as your floor, not your ceiling, and ask the transferring attorney for a written cost estimate. Note too that transfer duty does not apply when the seller is VAT registered and the sale carries 15 percent VAT instead, which is common on new developments. The duty bands and thresholds here are the ones the calculator applies and should be confirmed with SARS, since they are adjusted in the annual Budget.
A practical tip: if you are short on the deposit but can cover the duty, a slightly smaller deposit that still unlocks a better rate often beats draining every cent of savings. Keep an emergency buffer. A bonded home with no cash reserve is a fragile position.
Do I pay transfer duty on a R1 million house?
No. The calculator applies a nil threshold, currently R1,210,000, below which no transfer duty is charged, so a R1,000,000 purchase attracts zero duty. You would still pay attorney and registration fees. Confirm the current threshold with SARS, as it moves at Budget time.
Is a bigger deposit always worth it?
Usually for the loan, not always for your finances. A larger deposit cuts interest and can earn a better rate, but money locked in a house is hard to access. If your bond rate is near prime and you have higher-interest debt or no emergency fund, paying those down or keeping a buffer can be the smarter move.
How much does the rate change with my deposit?
It varies by lender and your credit profile, but moving from a 100 percent bond to a ten or twenty percent deposit can shave a meaningful margin off the rate above prime. The calculator does not guess the rate for you, so get quotes at different deposit levels and plug each rate in to see the true repayment difference.