NSW first home buyers
NSW First Home Owner Grant
The NSW First Home Owner Grant is a one-off $10,000 payment from the NSW Government to eligible first home buyers who buy or build a new home, an off-the-plan home, or a substantially renovated home that has never been lived in or sold since renovation.
Your Mortgage Broker Kirrawee(https://g.page/) writes this guide for buyers around Kirrawee because the grant's new-home rule changes what is actually worth searching for here. This page covers the grant amount, who qualifies, which properties it covers, how it combines with stamp duty relief, and the mistakes that get applications refused.
What It Is Worth Right Now
Here is the number half the internet still gets wrong: the grant pays exactly $10,000, one-off, and a surprising share of articles circulating on third-party sites still quote $30,000, a figure that has not applied for years and cannot be verified against any current government source. If you are budgeting off a blog post written years ago, you are budgeting on money that will never arrive, and a $20,000 hole in a deposit plan is a serious thing this close to a purchase.
The 2026-27 NSW Budget, handed down on 23 June 2026, made no changes to the grant amount or the value caps, so the position today is the position that has applied since the current thresholds took effect: $10,000, against a $600,000 cap for a home and land under one contract and a $750,000 combined cap for vacant land plus a separate building contract. Confirm every figure on the Revenue NSW pages linked here before you rely on it, because grant rules do change and this page links the source precisely so you can check the date it was last true.
Who Qualifies
Eligibility is decided by a short list of tests, and the grant office checks each one at approval or at completion, whichever applies to your purchase. Every applicant needs to satisfy all of the conditions below, so read them as a checklist rather than a summary:
Applicant structure
Citizenship status
No prior ownership
Once per lifetime
Occupancy commitment
Property type
Which Properties It Covers
The property-type test is where most people's assumptions break, so the table below sets out what does and does not qualify at a glance:
| Property situation | Grant eligible? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Newly built home, never lived in | Yes | Standard case, subject to the value cap |
| Off-the-plan purchase in a new development | Yes | Paid at settlement, which can be years after the contract |
| Substantially renovated home, never lived in or sold since renovation | Yes | The renovation must be genuine, not cosmetic |
| Vacant land with a separate building contract | Yes | Combined land and build value must sit under the $750,000 cap |
| Established home someone has lived in before | No | Not eligible at any price, even well under the cap |
| Company or trust as the purchaser | No | Natural persons only |
Why The Rule Bites Here
A statewide rule is one thing, but the reason this page exists is what the rule does to a buyer searching in Kirrawee specifically. The suburb's own numbers tell the story, and the short version is that the new-home test and the price cap cut the eligible market in ways that are easy to miss from a listing feed. Four points:
The median has moved past the cap
Kirrawee is a mixed-density suburb where roughly a third of dwellings are flats or apartments and just under half are separate houses, and the older detached stock on generous 600 to 900 square metre blocks trades well above the grant's $600,000 single-contract cap. What that means practically is that a buyer relying on the grant cannot chase the classic Kirrawee house on Oak Road or Flora Street, because the price alone disqualifies the purchase before the property-type test is even reached.
The eligible stock sits in new apartments
The suburb's building activity ranks in the ninety-sixth percentile within New South Wales, with 1,049 dwelling approvals over the past five years, and much of that new supply is apartments around the South Village redevelopment near the station. That is exactly where the eligible market lives: new, never-lived-in stock at price points under the cap, close to the railway line, which makes the grant genuinely usable here in a way it is not for buyers fixated on detached houses.
The gap between eligible and desirable
Here is the honest tension: the stock that qualifies for the grant is not always the stock buyers imagined when they started searching. A first buyer who wants a three-bedroom house with a yard will find that the qualifying apartments near the station are a different product entirely, and deciding early whether an apartment purchase suits your five-year plan matters more here than in suburbs where established stock sits under the cap.
What this means for your search
Run your search in two passes. First, shortlist only new or off-the-plan properties and check each against the $600,000 or $750,000 cap depending on how the contract is structured. Second, price the duty relief separately, because as the next section explains, an established home above the grant's reach can still attract significant duty concessions, and that changes the comparison completely.
How It Stacks With Duty Relief
The grant and the First Home Buyers Assistance Scheme are separate schemes run separately by Revenue NSW, and the combination rules are where real money sits, so it is worth understanding how they interact before choosing a property:
Both schemes on one purchase
Full duty exemption ceiling
Established homes qualify for duty relief
Vacant land thresholds differ
Thresholds are current
How it works
How To Apply And When Money Arrives
The application runs through your lender or directly to Revenue NSW, and the timing depends almost entirely on which purchase structure you chose. Four stages cover the practical path:
- 1
Choosing your lodgement route
Most applicants lodge through an approved bank or lender acting as agent for Revenue NSW, which bundles the grant claim into the loan approval and settlement workflow. Where no approved agent is involved, you apply directly to Revenue NSW, and the paperwork burden shifts onto you, so ask early whether your lender is an approved agent.
- 2
Paperwork before contract
Gather identity documents, evidence of citizenship or permanent residency, the contract of sale, and any building contract before you sign anything, because incomplete documents at lodgement are one of the most common reasons applications stall. Your conveyancer and, where relevant, a broker helping with the finance can check the pack against the grant checklist.
- 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 paid at settlement too, which can sit well beyond the contract date depending on developer completion, so do not budget the grant into your deposit at contract time unless the settlement is genuinely close.
- 4
Construction purchases differ
For a home built under a construction contract, the grant is typically paid once the first progress payment is made to the builder, which is earlier in the journey than most buyers expect and can genuinely help cash flow during the build. Confirm the exact payment point with Revenue NSW or your lender before locking in your build timeline.
Worth knowing early
What Gets An Application Knocked Back
Refusals are rarely dramatic, they are usually one test quietly failed, and every one of these has cost a buyer their $10,000 after contracts were already signed:
- Wrong property type Assuming any first home purchase qualifies, rather than checking the new-home test against the Revenue NSW definition, is the single most common failure.
- Missing the occupancy window Not moving in within 12 months of settlement or completion, or moving out before 12 months of continuous residence, triggers repayment of the grant.
- Prior ownership anywhere An applicant or their partner having previously owned or co-owned residential property in Australia, even briefly or interstate, disqualifies the application.
- Wrong purchaser structure Applying as a company or trust rather than as natural persons fails the applicant test outright.
- A price marginally over the cap A contract price even slightly above $600,000 or $750,000 disqualifies the whole application, it does not reduce the grant, so cap-check before you offer.
- Incomplete documents Missing identity, contract or citizenship evidence at lodgement delays or sinks applications that were otherwise perfectly eligible.
Where we work
Areas We Service
This page is written for Kirrawee buyers, and the same grant guidance applies right across the surrounding Sutherland Shire. We work throughout the nearby suburbs, including Kareela, Sylvania, Gymea, Gymea Bay and Grays Point, and our About page sets out who stands behind the guidance and how the business is licensed. If you are weighing the grant against a construction strategy or a guarantor route because the deposit is short, the service pages on this site cover those structures in detail.
Questions answered
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is the NSW First Home Owner Grant worth?
The grant pays $10,000 as a one-off payment. Beware older articles quoting $30,000, a figure that has not applied for years and appears on no current government source.
Can I get the grant on an established home?
No. The grant covers new homes, off-the-plan purchases and substantially renovated homes never lived in or sold since the renovation. Established homes are excluded at any price.
What is the property price cap for the grant?
For a home and land bought under one contract the cap is $600,000. For vacant land with a separate building contract, the combined value cap is $750,000.
Do I have to live in the property to keep the grant?
Yes. You must move in within 12 months of settlement or completion and live there as your main residence continuously for at least 12 months.
Is the grant different from stamp duty relief?
Yes, they are separate schemes. The grant applies only to new homes, while duty relief covers new and established homes and can reach full exemption at $800,000.
How long does the grant take to arrive?
For a built home it is generally paid at settlement. For construction it typically lands after the first progress payment, lodged through an approved lender or Revenue NSW.
Mortgage broker for Kirrawee and the suburbs around it
Get In Touch
If you are chasing a qualifying new home near the station and want the finance structured around the grant and duty relief from the start, talk to us before you sign anything. Call (02) 9072 0649 to discuss your position with a broker operating under an Australian Credit Licence, and bring your shortlist, your deposit figure and your questions. The first home buyer page on this site covers the lending side in more depth, including deposit thresholds and lender policy, and it is worth reading before the call.