VIC first home buyers
VIC First Home Owner Grant
The First Home Owner Grant in Victoria is a one-off payment of $10,000 to eligible first home buyers who buy or build a new home, including off-the-plan purchases, up to the stated value cap and subject to residency and prior-ownership rules.
Your Mortgage Broker Beaconsfield is a mortgage broking business based in Beaconsfield, and this page explains how the grant works for buyers in Cardinia: who qualifies, which properties it covers, how it combines with duty relief, and how to apply before the deadline.
What It Is Worth Right Now
The grant pays $10,000, once, and it pays the same amount whether the property sits in metropolitan Melbourne or regional Victoria. That surprises many buyers, because the separate regional first home owner grant scheme that once paid more outside the metro boundary is a closed scheme and does not apply to current contracts, so anything you read quoting a larger regional figure is out of date. The figure that counts today is the $10,000 statewide payment published on the SRO's First Home Owner Grant page. It is also worth understanding what the grant is not: it is not a discount on the purchase price, it is not a deposit substitute a lender will treat as its own, and it is not available on an established home at any price. It is a payment that lands after the eligible transaction completes, tied to a home that has never been sold or lived in, which shapes where it can actually be used.
Who Qualifies
The eligibility rules are set by the SRO and tested at settlement or completion, not at contract signing. The main conditions, drawn from the SRO's eligibility page, are:
Every applicant is a natural person
At least one applicant is 18 or older
No prior grant anywhere in Australia
No prior ownership of a home
Genuine occupancy for 12 months
The application is lodged in time
These rules are checked against both applicants in a couple, so a partner's old investment unit can quietly disqualify a file that otherwise looks clean. If any bullet above is uncertain for your household, confirm it before you sign rather than after.
Which Properties It Covers
The property type rules decide far more outcomes than buyers expect, because the grant attaches to the home itself, not to the buyer's intentions. The comparison below sets out what qualifies and what does not:
| Property situation | Grant eligible? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| New house, townhouse, apartment or unit, never sold or occupied | Yes | Must never have been sold, lived in, leased out or used for short-term accommodation |
| Substantially renovated home | Yes | The renovation must genuinely create a new home, not a cosmetic refresh |
| Home built to replace a demolished one | Yes | Treated as a new home where the replacement meets the SRO's conditions |
| Off-the-plan purchase of a new home | Yes | The value cap applies to the contract price, up to $750,000 |
| Established home, any price | No | No grant at any price, though duty relief may still apply separately |
The distinction that catches buyers is the leased-out home. A brand new apartment that an owner leased for six months before selling is a second-hand home for grant purposes, and no amount of newness in its fittings changes that.
Why The Rule Bites Here
The $750,000 value cap and the new-home-only rule meet Beaconsfield's housing stock in a particular way, and the meeting is not always a comfortable one for first buyers. This is a suburb of houses on decent-sized blocks, not apartments, and the building activity around it shapes where eligible properties actually sit.
Stock That Skews Established
The census facts table shows 86.3 per cent of Beaconsfield dwellings are separate houses and the suburb sits at the 99th percentile in the state for building activity, yet the established housing stock a first buyer walks past on the main streets mostly predates the grant's rules entirely. Established homes are simply out of the grant's reach at any price point.
The Cap Against the Market
The grant applies up to $750,000, and no suburb median price appears in the sourced facts table for Beaconsfield, so no local figure can be stated here. What the table does show is a suburb at the 91st income percentile with 49.6 per cent of dwellings still being paid off, which describes a market where desirable family housing sits well above entry level, and buyers should check any specific property's contract price against the cap.
Where Eligible Stock Actually Sits
The eligible properties, the new and never-occupied ones, cluster in the new estates and the broader Cardinia building pipeline. Across the shire, 3,308 dwellings were approved in the last five years, per the facts table, and that supply pushes out through Officer, Officer South and Clyde, with Beaconsfield itself and nearby Guys Hill picking up newer pockets rather than apartment product.
What This Means for Your Search
The gap between eligible and desirable is real: an eligible new townhouse inside the cap and a desirable established family home on a quarter acre are different purchases, at different prices, in different streets. First buyers here effectively choose between the grant on new stock nearby, or no grant on established stock, and the duty relief rules below change that arithmetic.
How It Stacks With Duty Relief
The grant is one scheme, and Victoria's first home buyer duty exemption or concession is a different scheme with its own thresholds, its own property rules and its own occupancy conditions. Buyers frequently conflate the two, which costs them money in planning. The key points of interaction:
A new home up to $600,000 can get both
Between $600,001 and $750,000, the grant pairs with reduced duty
An established home gets the duty relief but no grant
The occupancy conditions mirror each other
Each benefit is a once-only claim
The practical takeaway is that the two thresholds, the grant's $750,000 cap and the duty scheme's $600,000 full exemption, are different numbers doing different jobs, and a purchase price just above $600,000 changes which benefits stack.
How it works
How To Apply And When Money Arrives
The application mechanics are straightforward but deadline-bound, and the most common friction is simply lodging late or lodging incomplete. The process, per the SRO overview, runs as follows.
- 1
Lodge Through Your Lender Or The SRO
Most buyers apply through an approved agent, which in practice means their lender, because the application rides along with the home loan. Applying directly with the SRO is also available, and suits buyers whose transaction did not involve a mainstream lender.
- 2
Gather Proof Before Settlement
Applications ask for evidence of identity, citizenship or residency status, the contract of sale, and for builds, evidence of completion. Assembling this during the transaction, not after it, keeps the 12-month clock from becoming a problem.
- 3
Mind The 12-Month Deadline
The application must be lodged within 12 months of settlement or, for a construction transaction, within 12 months of completion of the build. Miss that window and the entitlement lapses entirely, regardless of how clearly you qualified.
- 4
Payment Follows Completion
The SRO pages do not publish fixed payment timeframes, so no dates can be promised here. The grant is paid once the eligible transaction completes, and the payment typically flows through the channel you lodged with, being your lender or the SRO directly.
Worth knowing early
What Gets An Application Knocked Back
The knock-back reasons are well documented and almost all of them are visible before settlement, which means almost all of them are avoidable with a check at contract stage. The common ones:
- Buying an established home The most frequent and most expensive mistake, assuming the grant applies to a house that has simply been lived in before, when no established property qualifies at any price.
- A "new" home that was leased out A property previously rented, or used for short-term accommodation, is no longer a new home under the rules, whatever its age or condition on inspection day.
- Contract price over $750,000 For off-the-plan purchases especially, buyers sometimes calculate eligibility on the balance owing at completion rather than the contract price the SRO actually applies.
- Occupancy shortfalls Not living in the home for the full 12 continuous months, or moving in later than 12 months after settlement or completion, unwinds the entitlement after the fact.
- Prior ownership or a prior grant A partner's earlier home, sometimes decades ago, disqualifies a joint application, so this should be raised between partners before contracts are exchanged.
- Applying as a company or trust The structure itself disqualifies the application, even where the individuals behind it all meet every personal condition.
- Missing the application deadline Twelve months pass quickly after a build completes, particularly where handover defects and moving house crowd out the paperwork.
Questions answered
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is the VIC First Home Owner Grant worth?
The Victorian First Home Owner Grant pays a one-off payment of $10,000 for an eligible new home, and the same amount applies statewide, so no separate regional payment is available on current contracts.
Can I get the grant on an established home?
No. The grant applies only to new homes that have never been sold, occupied, leased or used for short-term accommodation, substantially renovated homes, and homes built to replace a demolished one.
What is the property price cap for the grant?
The grant covers homes worth up to $750,000. For an off-the-plan purchase, the cap applies to the contract price rather than the final value at completion.
Do I have to live in the property to keep the grant?
Yes. At least one applicant must move in as their principal place of residence within 12 months of settlement or completion, and stay for at least 12 continuous months.
Is the grant different from stamp duty relief?
Yes, they are separate schemes with separate rules. The grant is the $10,000 payment for new homes, while the duty exemption or concession can also apply to established homes and vacant land.
How long does the grant take to arrive?
The SRO does not publish fixed payment dates. The grant is paid once the eligible transaction completes, and you must lodge within 12 months of settlement or completion of the build.
Mortgage broker for Beaconsfield and the suburbs around it
Get In Touch
If you are weighing up a new build against an established purchase and want to understand how the grant and the duty rules change the numbers for your own situation, ring [TRACKING_PHONE] today. You will deal with a qualified broker operating under an Australian Credit Licence, with our fee and commission structure published up front on our About page, and a short call costs nothing and obliges you to nothing.