NSW first home buyers
NSW First Home Owner Grant
The First Home Owner Grant is a one-off payment from the NSW Government to eligible first home buyers who purchase or build a new home. Revenue NSW administers the scheme and pays it once per applicant.
Your Mortgage Broker Chifley is a mortgage broking business serving Chifley and the surrounding bayside suburbs, and this page sets out what the grant pays, who qualifies, which local properties it actually covers, how it stacks with duty relief and how the money arrives.
What It Is Worth Right Now
Here is a figure worth checking twice, because half the internet still gets it wrong: the grant pays $10,000, once, per eligible applicant. A large number of articles and third-party sites still quote an amount several times that size, a figure that has not applied for years and cannot be verified against any current government source. The confirmed amount on the Revenue NSW page today is $10,000, full stop.
That number matters most when you set it against what it is expected to do. It will not bridge a deposit gap on its own, and it will not stretch across an established house in most of Sydney. What it does reliably is take the edge off a new build or an off-the-plan purchase, and it works hardest when it is combined with the separate duty relief scheme covered further down this page.
There is also stability worth knowing about. The 2026-27 NSW Budget, handed down on 23 June 2026, made no changes to the grant amount or the value caps, so the scheme you read about here is the scheme currently in force, not one waiting on a pending tweak.
Who Qualifies
The eligibility test is narrower than most buyers assume, and each point below is a genuine disqualifier rather than a preference. If any single one fails, the application fails with it:
Natural persons only
Citizenship at settlement
No prior ownership
Once in a lifetime
The occupancy commitment
The new home test
Worth saying plainly: the prior ownership test catches partners as well as applicants. A buyer who has never owned property can still be disqualified by a partner's brief ownership of a unit a decade ago, so check both names against the Revenue NSW eligibility page before you plan around the money.
Which Properties It Covers
The property type and the price cap work together, and the table below sets out how they combine. Read the last row carefully, because it is the one that changes most buyers' search:
| Purchase route | Grant eligible? | Value cap |
|---|---|---|
| New home, house and land under one contract | Yes | $600,000 |
| Vacant land plus a separate building contract | Yes, on the combined value | $750,000 |
| Off-the-plan purchase of a new dwelling | Yes | Caps above apply |
| Substantially renovated, never lived in or sold since | Yes | Caps above apply |
| Established home, previously lived in or sold | No | Not eligible at any price |
Two consequences follow from that table. First, the cap applies to the whole transaction, and a contract price even marginally over it disqualifies the application rather than reducing the grant. Second, the ineligible row is not a fringe case: established homes are the majority of what is for sale in most established suburbs, including the one this site serves, which is exactly why the next section exists.
Why The Rule Bites Here
Chifley is precisely the kind of suburb where the grant's new-home test and its value caps pinch hardest, because the housing stock and the price points sit on the wrong side of both rules for most buyers searching here.
Where Eligible Stock Sits
The suburb is overwhelmingly low-density detached housing, with roughly six in ten dwellings separate houses and the rest split between townhouses and a smaller share of units. Almost all of it is established stock: brick and brick-veneer homes built between the 1940s and the 1980s, none of which qualify for the grant at any price.
What Recent Approvals Show
Building activity here sits in the state's seventy-first percentile, with 326 dwellings approved across the last five years, including 69 in 2021-22 alone. The pattern behind those numbers is visible along Mitchell Street and Macquarie Street: older brick homes steadily giving way to larger rebuilds and new townhouses.
The Eligible Versus Desirable Gap
The homes most first home buyers actually want here, a freestanding post-war house on a generous block near Chifley Public School or Chifley Sports Reserve, are precisely the homes the grant excludes. Eligible new stock tends to mean off-the-plan units or house-and-land packages, often on smaller lots.
What This Means For Your Search
Practically, a grant-funded purchase around Chifley usually means one of three routes: an off-the-plan unit, a new townhouse in a small development, or a knock-down rebuild, which our construction finance page covers in detail. Each route keeps the value caps front of mind from day one.
How It Stacks With Duty Relief
This is the part most buyers do not discover until late, and it changes the arithmetic considerably: the grant is only one of two schemes, and the second one is broader. The First Home Buyers Assistance Scheme is a separate scheme administered by Revenue NSW, and it works alongside the grant rather than instead of it:
Established homes qualify too
A full duty exemption to a threshold
A concession above that
Vacant land has its own bands
The schemes stack
No change this budget cycle
Put together, the two schemes mean an eligible new purchase can carry a $10,000 payment and a duty exemption, while an established home just above the grant's reach may still carry a meaningful duty concession. That second scenario describes a large share of the affordable purchases in this part of Sydney.
How it works
How To Apply And When Money Arrives
The application itself is paperwork, but the timing rules catch people out because the money does not arrive at a single fixed moment. Here is how the sequence runs:
- 1
Lodging The Application
Most applications go through an approved bank or lender acting as agent for Revenue NSW, which means the grant is lodged with the loan application rather than separately. Where no approved agent is involved, you lodge directly with Revenue NSW instead.
- 2
The Documents You Need
Identity documents, the signed contract, and evidence of citizenship or permanent residency form the core set. Incomplete supporting documents at lodgement are one of the most common reasons applications stall, so assembling the full set before the contract is signed pays for itself.
- 3
When The Money Actually Lands
For a home already built and ready to occupy, the grant is generally paid at settlement. For an off-the-plan purchase it is also paid at settlement, but that settlement can sit well beyond the contract date depending on developer completion, so plan your cash flow around the later date.
- 4
Builds Follow A Different Rhythm
Under a construction contract, the grant is typically paid once the first progress payment reaches the builder, not at the end of the build. That early arrival matters for construction cash flow, and our guarantor and low deposit page covers how deposits and family support interact with staged builds.
Worth knowing early
What Gets An Application Knocked Back
Revenue NSW publishes the rejection patterns, and they are consistent enough to list. Every one of these is avoidable with a careful read of the contract before you sign:
- Wrong property type Assuming any first home purchase qualifies, rather than checking the new-home test, is the single most common error and it only surfaces after the contract is already signed.
- Prior ownership by a partner A previous ownership, even briefly or interstate, by an applicant or their partner anywhere in Australia disqualifies the claim under the current rules.
- Missing the occupancy window Not moving in within twelve months, or moving out before completing twelve months of continuous residence, puts the grant at risk of clawback.
- Applying through a structure A company or trust applicant fails the natural-person test, which is worth checking before you take conveyancing advice on ownership structure.
- A price marginally over the cap A contract price just over $600,000 or the combined $750,000 disqualifies the whole application. There is no reduced grant for near misses.
- Incomplete documents Missing identity, contract or citizenship evidence at lodgement delays or sinks the claim, and the fix is simply a complete file assembled early.
The pattern across all six is that the rejection happens after commitment. By the time the knock-back letter arrives, the buyer has already signed, paid a deposit and arranged finance around money that is now not coming, which is a far more expensive mistake than an afternoon spent reading the Revenue NSW pages.
Where we work
Areas We Service
From Chifley we work with first home buyers across the surrounding bayside suburbs of the eastern beaches, and the same grant rules apply in each of them even though the eligible stock differs street by street. Read our local pages for Matraville, Malabar, Little Bay and Phillip Bay, or start with our broader first home buyer loans service page and the team background on the About page.
Questions answered
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is the NSW First Home Owner Grant worth?
The grant pays $10,000, once per eligible applicant, and the 2026-27 NSW Budget left the amount and the value caps unchanged. Older articles quoting a larger figure are out of date.
Can I get the grant on an established home?
No. A home that has been lived in before, or sold since renovation, is ineligible for the grant at any price. Duty relief under the separate assistance scheme can still apply to established homes.
What is the property price cap for the grant?
The cap is $600,000 for a home and land bought under one contract, or $750,000 combined for vacant land with a separate building contract. A price even marginally over the cap disqualifies the application.
Do I have to live in the property to keep the grant?
Yes. For contracts from 1 July 2023 you must move in within twelve months of completion and live there continuously as your main residence for at least twelve months, or the grant can be clawed back.
Is the grant different from stamp duty relief?
Yes. The grant is a $10,000 payment for new homes only. The First Home Buyers Assistance Scheme reduces transfer duty, covers established homes as well, and the two can stack on an eligible new purchase.
How long does the grant take to arrive?
Timing depends on the stage. A finished home is generally paid at settlement, an off-the-plan purchase at its later settlement, and a construction build typically after the first progress payment reaches the builder.
Mortgage broker for Chifley and the suburbs around it
Get In Touch
If you are weighing up an off-the-plan purchase, a rebuild or an established home in Chifley and want to know which schemes actually apply to your price point, call (02) 9072 0666 for a free, no-obligation conversation with a licensed credit representative who works to a published fee structure and will tell you plainly where you stand before anything is lodged.