VIC first home buyers
VIC First Home Owner Grant
The First Home Owner Grant is a one-off payment from the Victorian government to eligible first home buyers who buy or build a new home in Victoria, or purchase off the plan, within the scheme's value cap. It is administered by the State Revenue Office.
This page sets out what the grant pays, who qualifies, which properties it covers and how it combines with duty relief, then connects those rules to the housing stock actually available around Chelsea Heights. Your Mortgage Broker Chelsea Heights(/about/) publishes every figure with its source so you can verify each one.
What It Is Worth Right Now
The payment is a flat $10,000, one grant per eligible transaction, and it is the same statewide. Many buyers assume regional Victoria pays more, because a separate regional scheme used to exist, but that scheme is closed and does not apply to current contracts, so a townhouse in Chelsea Heights and a house in Mildura attract the identical amount. The figure that trips people up more often is the value cap: the home must come in at up to $750,000, and for off-the-plan purchases the cap applies to the contract price rather than the finished value. In suburbs where prices have moved well past that line, the grant quietly stops applying to most of the stock, which is exactly the local problem this page examines below.
Who Qualifies
The eligibility test is set by the State Revenue Office and applies the same way in every suburb. The main conditions run like this:
Natural persons only
Citizenship or residency
Genuine first buyers
A new home
The value cap
Genuine occupancy
A timely application
Each of these conditions is checkable on the eligibility page maintained by the State Revenue Office, and the prior ownership test catches out more applicants than any other, because it applies to partners too.
Which Properties It Covers
The property test is narrower than most buyers expect, so it pays to know the boundaries before you inspect anything:
| Property type | Grant eligible? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| New house, townhouse, apartment or unit, never sold or occupied | Yes | Must not have been leased out or used for short-term accommodation |
| Substantially renovated home | Yes | Renovation must be genuine and the home substantially renewed |
| Home built to replace a demolished one | Yes | Counts as a new home under the scheme |
| Off-the-plan purchase | Yes | Value cap tested on the contract price |
| Established home | No | No grant at any price, though duty relief may still apply |
| Investment property | No | Occupancy rules require someone to live in it |
The established home row is the one worth dwelling on, because it changes the shape of the whole search: a buyer set on an older fibro house near the foreshore is shopping for duty relief, not for the grant, and the two schemes have different rules attached.
Why The Rule Bites Here
Thin supply of new stock
Chelsea Heights is an established suburb where about 78.9 per cent of dwellings are separate houses and only around 7.8 per cent are flats, and approvals across five years total just 77, so genuinely new, never-occupied homes rarely appear here.
Where eligible homes actually sit
Building activity runs in the lowest band of the state, so qualifying homes cluster in infill townhouse sites along main roads, unit developments, and knock-down rebuilds on older allotments, while the side streets of established housing fail the never-occupied test.
The gap between eligible and desirable
Eligible does not mean desirable, and that gap shapes every search, because a new townhouse clearing the never-sold test sits closer to major roads than the quiet court you pictured, so buyers decide whether the grant justifies reshaping location preferences.
What it means for your search
In practice, a Chelsea Heights first buyer works the search in two lanes at once: monitoring new off-the-plan and house-and-land opportunities where the grant and duty relief stack together, and separately pricing the established market where duty relief alone applies.
How It Stacks With Duty Relief
Duty relief is a separate scheme with its own thresholds, and the interaction between the two is where the real money sits. The headline points, all sourced from the revenue office's first home buyer duty page:
Full duty exemption to $600,000
Concession band from $600,001 to $750,000
Established homes still get duty relief
Vacant land counts
Once only
Different thresholds, same scheme family
How it works
How To Apply And When Money Arrives
- 1
Choose your lodgement route
Applications go through an approved agent, which in practice means your lender at settlement, or directly to the State Revenue Office, and most buyers lodge through their lender because the paperwork rides along with the loan application from the start.
- 2
Gather the right documents
Expect to prove identity, citizenship or residency, and the purchase details for every named applicant, because the scheme assesses the whole named applicant list including partners, and anyone who held property before may need earlier records of that occupancy history.
- 3
Watch the deadline
You have 12 months from settlement, or from completion of construction for a build, to lodge, and missing the window loses the grant permanently, so diarise the date on settlement day rather than trusting your own memory a year later.
- 4
When the money lands
The revenue office does not publish payment timeframes by purchase type, so no firm date can be promised here, but the sourced pages confirm payment is made once the eligible transaction completes, and lodging early avoids adding any avoidable delay.
Worth knowing early
What Gets An Application Knocked Back
Rejections follow a small set of predictable patterns, and every one of them was avoidable at the buying stage:
- Buying established The single most common rejection: a buyer assumes an older home qualifies and discovers at application time that the grant never covered it.
- A previously tenanted home A "new" home that was leased out or used for short-term accommodation before purchase fails the never-occupied test, so ask about its history before you sign.
- Over the cap A contract price above $750,000 disqualifies the transaction outright, including off-the-plan deals where the finished valuation runs higher.
- Broken occupancy Not living in the home for the full 12 continuous months, or moving in later than 12 months after settlement or completion, forfeits eligibility.
- Prior ownership or a prior grant Any applicant or partner who has owned and occupied a home for six continuous months or more, or received a grant previously, ends the claim for everyone on the application.
- Wrong applicant structure Applying as a company or trust fails the natural persons rule, so the ownership structure needs sorting before contracts are signed.
- Missed deadline Lodging after the 12-month window closes loses the grant permanently, with no discretion to recover it.
Where we work
Areas We Service
Your Mortgage Broker Chelsea Heights serves buyers across Kingston's bayside and neighbouring suburbs, and the same grant rules apply in each of them, even where the eligible stock differs sharply. Alongside Chelsea Heights, we work with first buyers in Braeside, Bangholme, Patterson Lakes, Bonbeach, Chelsea and Edithvale, and our service pages cover the lending that sits underneath each purchase, from first home buyer loans to construction finance.
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 for eligible first home buyers. One amount applies statewide, because the separate regional grant is a closed scheme that no longer applies to current contracts.
Can I get the grant on an established home?
No. The grant covers new homes never sold and never lived in, substantially renovated homes, and homes built to replace a demolished one. Established homes receive no grant at any price, though duty relief may still apply.
What is the property price cap for the grant?
The home must be valued at up to $750,000. For off-the-plan purchases, the cap applies to the contract price rather than the completed value, which changes what you can realistically target.
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. Duty relief applies to new and established homes up to $600,000 for a full exemption, with a concession band to $750,000. The grant applies only to new homes.
How long does the grant take to arrive?
The revenue office does not publish payment timeframes. Payment is made once the eligible transaction completes, and you must apply within 12 months of settlement or completion through your lender or the SRO.
Mortgage broker for Chelsea Heights and the suburbs around it
Get In Touch
If you are weighing a grant-eligible purchase against the established market, a conversation will map the numbers faster than another weekend of listings. Call (03) 9122 8522 to speak with a broker who publishes their process and fees, works under an Australian Credit Licence, and belongs to AFCA, so every recommendation comes with something you can check.