NSW first home buyers
NSW First Home Owner Grant
The NSW 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 in New South Wales. It is administered by Revenue NSW and applies only to properties that have not been previously lived in.
Your Mortgage Broker Como, a mortgage broking business based in Como in the Sutherland Shire, helps first home buyers work through this grant alongside their finance, as outlined on our About page. This page covers what the grant is worth, who qualifies, the property caps, how it combines with stamp duty relief, and what it means for buyers searching around Como.
What It Is Worth Right Now
Plenty of older articles still quote a $30,000 figure that has not applied for years and cannot be verified against any current government source. The confirmed amount today is a one-off $10,000, and the 2026-27 NSW Budget, handed down on 23 June 2026, made no changes to either the grant amount or its value caps. That matters for two reasons. First, buyers who budget around an inflated figure discover the shortfall late, usually after they have already committed to a purchase price. Second, the grant is only one half of the support available: the transfer duty concessions under the separate First Home Buyers Assistance Scheme are often worth considerably more than the grant itself, particularly on a higher-priced purchase. Treat the grant as a contribution to your new home, not the deposit, and check both figures against the Revenue NSW pages before you sign anything, because eligibility dates and thresholds do change and a wrong assumption here is expensive.
Who Qualifies
Eligibility is a checklist, and every item must be satisfied before the grant is paid:
Applicant structure
Citizenship
Prior ownership
First use
Occupancy
Frequency
Value cap
Each of these is a hard gate, not a sliding scale. If you want help mapping your own position against the checklist, our first home buyer loans page walks through the finance side in detail.
Which Properties It Covers
The grant's property test splits cleanly into three categories, and the price caps differ between them:
| Property type | Grant eligible? | Value cap |
|---|---|---|
| New home, house and land under one contract | Yes | $600,000 total |
| Vacant land, then a separate building contract | Yes | $750,000 combined |
| Off-the-plan purchase | Yes | $600,000 |
| Substantially renovated, never lived in or resold since renovation | Yes | $600,000 |
| Established home, previously lived in or sold | No, at any price | Not applicable |
The caps come from Revenue NSW, and the vacant land figure is the one most buyers misread: the $750,000 is the combined value of the land plus the construction contract, not the land alone. A contract price even marginally over the cap disqualifies the entire application rather than reducing the grant, which is why the number needs checking before you exchange, not after.
Why The Rule Bites Here
Como's housing stock makes this grant genuinely awkward for local buyers, and the reason is structural.
Almost Nothing Here Is New
Flats and apartments make up less than one per cent of Como's dwellings, and more than nine in ten are separate houses, many of them weatherboard and fibro homes from the railway village era between the 1880s and the post-war decades. An established weatherboard cottage near the station, however charming, fails the grant's first-use test outright, at any price.
The Rebuild Route Bypasses It
The knockdown rebuilds steadily working through Como's view streets above the Georges River mostly sit with existing owners rather than first home buyers. A rebuild on land you already own is not a purchase, so most of that activity never touches the grant, even though it is the suburb's main source of new dwellings.
Local Prices Sit Above The Cap
Como's median household mortgage repayment runs at about $3,000 a month, which points to purchase prices well north of the $600,000 cap. A household income in the state's ninety-seventh percentile supports borrowing past the cap easily, which means the grant's ceiling and the suburb's price floor barely overlap.
Where Eligible Stock Actually Sits
With 385 dwelling approvals over the past five years, new builds do exist locally, but they tend to be infill projects and knockdown rebuilds priced for upgraders. The practical outcome for a Como first home buyer is a choice between chasing the grant in a cheaper corridor further out, or staying local and relying on duty relief alone.
How It Stacks With Duty Relief
The grant and the stamp duty concessions are two different schemes, and the interaction between them is where first home buyers either do well or miss out:
The duty scheme covers established homes
Full exemption up to $800,000
Tapering to $1,000,000
Vacant land gets its own thresholds
Both schemes can combine
The thresholds have been stable
For a buyer who stays in the Shire and buys established, the duty concession is the whole package. For one willing to build or buy off-the-plan, both can stack, and that difference alone can decide which property wins.
How it works
How To Apply And When Money Arrives
The application itself is straightforward, but the timing of the payment varies sharply depending on how you are buying.
- 1
Buying A Completed New Home
Where the home is already built and ready to occupy, the grant is generally paid at settlement, which means it can land in your account at the same time as the keys.
- 2
Buying Off The Plan
Off-the-plan buyers receive the grant at settlement, which can sit well beyond the contract date depending on when the developer completes the project, so the money should never be counted towards the deposit.
- 3
Building Under A Construction Contract
For a build, the grant is typically paid once the first progress payment is made to the builder, which is worth knowing if you are planning cash flow around our construction loans process.
- 4
How Lodgement Works
You lodge either through an approved bank or lender acting as agent for Revenue NSW, or directly to Revenue NSW where no approved agent is involved, and your broker can usually arrange the agent route as part of the loan application.
Worth knowing early
What Gets An Application Knocked Back
Most refusals fall into a small set of repeatable mistakes, and every one of them is avoidable:
- Wrong property type Assuming any first home purchase qualifies, when the new-home test is the first gate the application hits.
- Missing the occupancy window Not moving in within 12 months, or moving out before 12 continuous months of residence, which Revenue NSW does follow up on.
- Prior ownership anywhere in Australia An applicant or their partner who briefly co-owned a property interstate years ago, even one acquired before 2000 without the exception applying, disqualifies the application.
- Applying as a company or trust The structure test is absolute, and a company or discretionary trust cannot receive the grant.
- Contract price over the cap A price marginally above $600,000 or the $750,000 combined figure kills the whole application rather than trimming the grant.
- Incomplete documents at lodgement Missing identity, contract or citizenship evidence, which delays processing and can hold up settlement alongside it.
If any of these describe your situation, particularly the prior-ownership or structure questions, it is worth talking through the position before you exchange. A family guarantee through our guarantor and low deposit loans service can solve a deposit gap, but it cannot fix an ineligible property type.
Where we work
Areas We Service
Your Mortgage Broker Como is based in Como and arranges finance for first home buyers across the southern Sutherland Shire, including Oatley across the old rail bridge, Oyster Bay, Kareela, Jannali, Bonnet Bay and Illawong, in person or by video.
Questions answered
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is the NSW First Home Owner Grant worth?
It is a one-off payment of $10,000 under the current scheme, unchanged in the 2026-27 NSW Budget. It applies only to eligible new homes, not established ones, and is paid once per applicant per lifetime.
Can I get the grant on an established home?
No. The grant covers new homes, off-the-plan purchases and substantially renovated properties never lived in or sold since renovation. An established home is not eligible at any price, though it may still qualify for duty relief.
What is the property price cap for the grant?
The cap is $600,000 for a new home including land under one contract. Where you buy vacant land and build under a separate contract, the combined value must stay under $750,000.
Do I have to live in the property to keep the grant?
Yes. For contracts from 1 July 2023 you must move in within 12 months of settlement or completion and live there continuously as your main residence for at least 12 months.
Is the grant different from stamp duty relief?
Yes, they are separate schemes. The grant is $10,000 for new homes only, while the First Home Buyers Assistance Scheme exempts or reduces transfer duty on both new and established homes up to $1,000,000.
How long does the grant take to arrive?
For a completed home it is generally paid at settlement. For a build, it typically arrives once the first progress payment is made to the builder. Off-the-plan buyers wait until the development settles.
Mortgage broker for Como and the suburbs around it
Get In Touch
Before you commit to a purchase price, get the grant, duty and borrowing position mapped in writing. Call [TRACKING_PHONE] to talk it through with a licensed credit representative, or read more about how we work on the About page.