VIC first home buyers
VIC First Home Owner Grant
The First Home Owner Grant is a one-off payment of $10,000 from the Victorian government to eligible first home buyers who buy or build a new home in Victoria. It is administered by the State Revenue Office and claimed through your lender or directly.
This page explains what the grant covers, who qualifies and how it interacts with first home buyer duty relief, using the current rules published by the SRO. Your Mortgage Broker Scoresby(/), a mortgage broking service based in Scoresby, also connects each rule to what is actually being built locally, so you can see where an eligible purchase is realistic.
What It Is Worth Right Now
The grant is worth $10,000, paid once, and the same amount applies statewide. Many buyers assume regional Victoria carries a larger payment, because a separate regional scheme existed for years, but that scheme is closed and does not apply to current contracts. If you sign a contract today in Scoresby or in Shepparton, the figure is identical. What changes the total benefit is not the grant itself but the separate duty relief scheme, which can be worth considerably more on a cheaper purchase. Both schemes are set out below, with their own thresholds, because confusing the two caps is one of the most common planning mistakes first home buyers make.
Who Qualifies
The SRO publishes a fixed list of eligibility criteria, and every one of them must be met at the relevant time. The main conditions are:
Natural persons only
Citizenship or residency
First ownership test
No prior grant
New home only
Value cap
Residence requirement
If you are unsure how the prior ownership test applies to a property you inherited or briefly co-owned, it is worth confirming your position before signing anything, because the test is applied strictly.
Which Properties It Covers
The grant is narrower than most buyers expect, and the fastest way to check a property is to match it against the eligible categories published by the SRO:
| Property | Grant eligibility | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| New house, townhouse, apartment or unit, never sold or occupied | Eligible | Must not have been leased or used for short-stay accommodation |
| Substantially renovated home | Eligible | The renovation must have created a new, as-new residence |
| Home built to replace a demolished one | Eligible | The rebuilt home must meet the new-home conditions |
| Off-the-plan purchase | Eligible | The $750,000 cap applies to the contract price |
| Established home, any price | Not eligible | Duty relief may still apply separately |
The established home row is where most disappointment happens. A house that has simply changed hands once before is not new, no matter its condition or price.
Why The Rule Bites Here
The $750,000 cap is easy to satisfy in some parts of Melbourne and difficult in Scoresby, and the gap between what qualifies and what buyers actually want shapes the whole search. Four local realities explain why.
Where eligible stock actually sits
Scoresby is an established suburb of 2,074 dwellings, 96.3 per cent of them separate houses and only 0.4 per cent flats or apartments, so the apartment-and-townhouse pipeline that feeds the grant elsewhere barely exists here. What new stock does appear comes from dwelling approvals, and the suburb recorded 699 of them over the last five years, placing its building activity in the state's 87th percentile. That approval volume points to replacement dwellings on existing blocks rather than new estates, which means grant-eligible homes appear as individual knock-down rebuilds and dual-occupancy townhouses, scattered and hard to find, rather than in a visible cluster buyers can simply drive through.
The cap versus the local price of entry
No published local figure sits on this facts sheet, so the position is best described plainly: family houses on standard Scoresby blocks, the 43.4 per cent of dwellings with four or more bedrooms, generally trade above the level a first home buyer with a $750,000 ceiling can chase. The homes that do clear the cap tend to be the new townhouses and villa units carved off larger allotments, which is precisely the stock the grant was designed to encourage. Buyers should treat the cap as a filter that pushes them toward attached new dwellings, and price their search accordingly rather than hoping a renovated family house might squeak under.
The gap between eligible and desirable
A brand-new townhouse under the cap and an established four-bedroom house above it can sit a few streets apart, and only one of them carries the $10,000 payment plus duty relief. Buyers weighing the two are really comparing a smaller, efficient new home with real government money attached against a larger older home with neither, while carrying a local median household mortgage repayment of about $2,023 a month. Neither choice is wrong, but the arithmetic changes with the grant and the duty exemption counted in, which is why both schemes should be priced into the comparison before an offer is made rather than after.
What this means for your search
Practically, a Scoresby first home buyer chasing the grant should watch two channels: new townhouse releases in Knox and adjoining suburbs, and house-and-land or off-the-plan opportunities where the contract price stays under the cap. With median household income here around $1,965 a week, in the state's 75th percentile, serviceability is rarely the binding constraint; the cap and the stock are. Broadening the search to Wantirna South, Knoxfield and Rowville widens the eligible pipeline without leaving the school and transport catchments most buyers started with.
How It Stacks With Duty Relief
The grant and the first home buyer duty exemption or concession are two separate schemes with two separate sets of thresholds, and stacking them correctly can change the total cost of entry substantially. The structure, per the SRO, is:
Full duty exemption under $600,000
Sliding concession from $600,001 to $750,000
Established homes still get duty relief
Vacant land counts too
Same residence rule, once only
Note that the duty thresholds of $600,000 and $750,000 are not the same thing as the grant cap, even though the numbers overlap. Each scheme is assessed on its own terms.
How it works
How To Apply And When Money Arrives
The application itself is not difficult, but the timing rules around it are strict, and missing the deadline forfeits the payment entirely. The sequence runs as follows.
- 1
Choose your lodgement route
You can apply through an approved agent, which in practice is your lender, at the time you apply for your home loan, or lodge directly with the SRO yourself. Most buyers buying through a bank or broker take the agent route because it bundles the application into the loan process. The direct route suits buyers settling with unusual structures or those who missed the lender lodgement window.
- 2
Lodge within the deadline
The application must be lodged within 12 months of settlement, or within 12 months of completion for a build. This sounds generous and routinely catches people out, because completion dates shift on construction and nobody reminds you once you have moved in. Diarise the date from settlement day.
- 3
Payment on completion
The SRO does not publish a fixed payment timeframe on its current pages, so no date can be promised here. What the pages do state is that the grant is paid once the eligible transaction completes, which for a purchase means settlement and for a construction loan means the end of the build. Plan your cash flow so that the grant is a bonus, not a deposit you are counting on early.
- 4
Keep your evidence together
Records of occupancy matter as much as records of purchase, because the 12-month residence requirement is a condition of the grant, not a formality. Utility accounts, electoral enrolment and similar documents in at least one applicant's name, dated from the required move-in window, protect the payment if the SRO ever reviews the claim.
Worth knowing early
What Gets An Application Knocked Back
The SRO's own guidance lists the recurring failure modes, and nearly all of them come from assuming the grant is broader than it is. The common ones are:
- Buying an established home The most frequent knock-back: a perfectly good house that has simply been sold before does not qualify, regardless of its condition, age of renovation or price.
- A new home that was leased or short-let A never-sold dwelling that was rented out or listed on short-stay platforms before purchase fails the never-occupied test, and this trips up buyers of ex-display and ex-rental stock.
- Contract price over the cap A contract at $755,000 receives nothing, and off-the-plan buyers get caught when they test the cap against the finished value instead of the contract price.
- Breaking the residence rule Not living in the home for the full 12 continuous months, or starting occupation more than 12 months after settlement or completion, puts the grant at risk of clawback.
- Prior ownership or a prior grant A partner who previously owned or received a grant disqualifies the joint application, even if the other applicant is a genuine first home buyer.
- Applying as a company or trust The applicant must be a natural person, so buying in a family trust forfeits eligibility entirely.
- Missing the 12-month deadline Applications lodged after the cut-off are refused, with no discretion for honest oversight.
Each of these is avoidable with a contract reviewed against the eligibility rules before signing, not after.
Where we work
Areas We Service
Alongside Scoresby itself, Your Mortgage Broker Scoresby works with first home buyers across the City of Knox and the surrounding south-east, including Wantirna South, Knoxfield, Rowville, Wheelers Hill and Glen Waverley, where new townhouse stock within the grant cap is more common. For buyers weighing construction against an established purchase, the construction loans and first home buyer loans pages set out how each pathway is financed, and the about page explains how the broking service is structured and paid.
Questions answered
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is the VIC First Home Owner Grant worth?
The grant is a one-off payment of $10,000, and the same amount applies across Victoria, including metropolitan suburbs such as Scoresby. The separate regional grant scheme is closed and does not apply to current contracts.
Can I get the grant on an established home?
No. The grant only applies to a new home that has never been sold or occupied, a substantially renovated home, or a home built to replace a demolished one. Established homes receive no grant at any price.
What is the property price cap for the grant?
The home must be worth up to $750,000. For an off-the-plan purchase, the cap applies to the contract price rather than the final completed value.
Do I have to live in the property to keep the grant?
Yes. At least one applicant must move in within 12 months of settlement or completion and live there as their principal place of residence for at least 12 continuous months.
Is the grant different from stamp duty relief?
Yes, they are separate schemes with separate thresholds. The duty exemption applies up to $600,000 and a reduced-duty concession runs from $600,001 to $750,000, covering new and established homes.
How long does the grant take to arrive?
The SRO does not publish a fixed payment timeframe. The grant is paid once the eligible transaction completes, and you must lodge within 12 months of settlement or completion.
Mortgage broker for Scoresby and the suburbs around it
Get In Touch
If you are weighing a new build against an established purchase in Scoresby and want the grant and duty relief worked into the real numbers, call (03) 9122 8521. You will speak with the same accountable broker from first call to settlement, operating under an Australian Credit Licence, and the conversation costs nothing.