What Grants Are Available For First Home Buyers In Queensland?
Buying a home for the first time can be both an exciting and daunting prospect, but it can also be a very expensive one. Making the most of the opportunities available can ease some of the financial stress.
Luckily, Queenslanders can benefit from government homeowner grants that are helping first-time buyers to get a start on the Australian property ladder.
Queensland First Home Owners’ Grant
With the Queensland First Home Owners’ Grant, first home buyers can get a grant of $15,000 towards buying or building their very first home.
There are a few eligibility requirements to be met before you can claim this cash:
- Your contract needs to be dated 1 July 2018 or later.
- You must be buying or building a new property, valued at less than $750,000.
- You must move into your new home within one year of purchase, and live there as your principal place of residence for a minimum continuous six-month period.
- The grant is paid per new home – not per person on the title of the same home.
- Purchasing a block of land alone does not make you eligible for the grant.
- If you or your partner have previously owned property in Australia, you aren’t eligible.
The money gets paid once the transaction is complete and your name is on the title of the property. If you are building your own property, the grant typically gets paid when you have a final inspection certificate.
How do you apply for the First Home Owner’s Grant in QLD?
Applying for the grant is simple as long as you do it within one year of your title on the home being registered or within one year of the construction’s completion date if you are building a new home.
You can either send an application through an approved bank or lender when you are finalising your mortgage or submit it to the Office of State Review.
First Home Concession
The good news for first-time homebuyers in Australia is that they are eligible for both the one-off grant payment and potential savings on stamp duty.
You may be able to get some stamp duty concessions as a first home buyer in Queensland if your home is valued under $550,000 or if your vacant land is under $400,000.
If your property is valued more than this, there is still the possibility of getting your stamp duty waived, but this is assessed on a case-by-case basis.
There are some strings attached to the stamp duty concession:
- You can’t have owned any residential land/property previously.
- You have never claimed the first home vacant land concession before.
- If you are buying with a partner and they have owned property before, only the person who is the first home buyer can claim the concession as a proportion of ownership. For example, if you own half the property, you are entitled to 50 per cent of the concession.
- You must live in the property for at least one year, starting within 12 months of the date of settlement.
If the home you are buying is already rented and there are currently paying tenants with a fixed lease, then you can let that property stay rented until the current lease end date or six months from the settlement – whichever comes first – and you will still be eligible for the concession if you then move in for your full consecutive 12 months.
First Home Guarantee
The First Home Guarantee is a loan assistance initiative from the federal government that kicked off on 1 January 2020. This guarantee means you don’t have to save as much before buying your first home and can take out a mortgage with just a 5 per cent deposit.
You also won’t have to pay Lenders Mortgage Insurance whereas normally, you would have to pay this with any deposit of less than 20 per cent.
As with anything, there are requirements to be met:
- This has to be for your first home, you can’t have owned any property in Australia before.
- If you are single, your taxable income can only be up to $125,000 and for couples, your combined taxable income can be a maximum of $200,000.
- You have to be moving into the home within six months – investment properties are not eligible.
- The value of your new home can only be up to $600,000 for established homes or $650,000 for new homes/builds.
For more information on these grants and concessions for your first home, speak to the team here at The Real Estate People.
