What do banks want to hear when applying for a first home loan? Recommendations ? Bankwest Tracker Ultra?

Hi, wondering if anyone could help –

My spouse and I have just bought our first home (PPoR), and have been shopping for a loan

Basic finance details
combined income 140000 pretax
no kids
no debt
no hecs

we have about 200,000 total savings and so plan to only borrow up to 80% to avoid LMI – planning to borrow about 550K
basically all our wages/savings will service the loan and hopefully contribute to P+I
we would like to rent out the property after 6 months so that rental income can help with mortgage repayments
and if the realestate market continues to decline in a few years then look at investing in something else

The big banks recommend pro-packages marketed under different names..
We've managed to conclude our basic needs are
1. best discount off SVR (though to our surprise even big banks vary by up to 0.2% on the SVR!)
2. full offset account with free withdrawals
3. free switches to split loans etc
4. low exit fees – though they seem to be pretty standard

don't need credit cards b/c we have fee free ones. and pretty confident the other "bonuses" like home insurance discounts can be matched independently

so far banks have only offered decent "discounts" off SVR if you take up their pro-packages. so far, i have gotten quotes (in person) from nab 0.8%, westpac at least 0.8% depending on their "pricing department", ANZ 0.77%.

Our questions are : what of our profile as a borrower do banks consider when working out your maximum discount, for our loan amount 550-600K?

do they want to hear that you want to invest in something else soon hence take up more debt?
others ask us about plans to renovate etc – why? so we take up more loan?

we assume the banks would want us to be paying interest only for as long as possible – do i have to disclose my savings in other banks that i plan to use to offset my loan (straight away as a lump sum to reduce interest repayments), or if i have to tell them anyway as part of the application process, do i tell them it's been set aside for a car or something?

and, am i more likely to get a better discount from the bank where the bulk of our savings is?

what do banks really want to hear?

and what don't they want to hear?  how is "common property" relevant – ours is a townhouse but with own land, and just a small shared driveway to the garage

and with the discrepancies in SVR for the big banks, in your experience, is one of them consistently the "leader" in keeping ahead with decent rate drops – commonwealth? nab?

Re: bankwest's home tracker ultra – any comments on our plan = take advantage of Bankwest's discounted interest rate, until 3 years is up or such time when the SVR minus discount offered by other banks trumps Bankwest's rate – then jump ship (b/c of no exit fees).

i foolishly discussed this plan with a big bank when trying to negotiate a good discount off SVR.  She asked – would I be considering leaving a loan after 4 years (when exit fees are nil). oh well.

Apologies for such a longwinded post with so many questions.. I hope the answers will help other first home buyers too!

Thanks in advance
b

ps. we've approached one independent broker so far – who basically told us due to current economic climate – there's pretty much no margin at all – and just tabulated the banks standard offers.  so we went to the banks directly.