For Victorian first home buyers
There's more help available than most first home buyers realise, and the rules changed again this year. Here's the whole landscape on one page, with the thresholds and conditions that decide who actually gets what.
A one-off payment for eligible first home buyers buying or building in Victoria.
The condition
New or never-occupied homes only, valued up to $750,000. An established home doesn't qualify for this one. It's the most common mix-up we see.
Buy a Victorian home with a dutiable value up to $600,000 and you pay no land transfer duty at all. Between $600,001 and $750,000 you pay a reduced amount.
The condition
Unlike the grant, this covers established homes as well as new ones, and vacant land you intend to build on. You need to live there for twelve continuous months, starting within a year of settlement.
Buy with a 5% deposit and no lenders mortgage insurance, which is the insurance that protects the lender rather than you. Single parents may go as low as 2%. It was formerly known as the Home Guarantee Scheme.
The condition
Income caps have been removed and price caps have increased. This is the change that moves people's timelines the most, because it's usually the deposit rather than the repayment that holds someone back.
Make extra voluntary contributions into your super, then withdraw them for your first home: up to $50,000 of contributions each (no more than $15,000 a year), plus earnings, taxed more favourably than ordinary savings.
The condition
It rewards planning ahead. The money stays in super until you apply to release it, so it suits someone twelve months out rather than someone making an offer next weekend.
A shared equity scheme. The government contributes up to 30% or 40% towards the purchase and you can start with a 2% deposit. You own the home and you live in it.
The condition
The government holds a share until you buy it out, and you do that at the market value then, not the value it put in. Income caps, price caps and a limited number of places apply each year. Applications opened in December 2025.
The next part
This page is the map. Your own route is the harder part: which of the five you may qualify for, which ones combine and which cancel each other out, what the real cash to settlement adds up to once duty, fees and a buffer are counted, and the catch behind each one stated plainly.
The full guide works all of it through with one couple's actual numbers, then covers the part most guides skip entirely: setting the loan up for the next five years, not just settlement day.