QLD first home buyers
QLD First Home Owner Grant
The Queensland First Home Owner Grant is a state government payment of $30,000 for eligible first home buyers who buy or build a new home in Queensland, including off-the-plan purchases, house and land packages and substantial renovations.
Your Mortgage Broker Greenbank(/) is a mortgage broking business serving Greenbank and the surrounding Logan suburbs, and this page sets out what the grant pays, who qualifies, which properties it covers, how it interacts with transfer duty relief, and where eligible stock actually sits near you.
What It Is Worth Right Now
The grant is $30,000 for contracts signed on or after 20 November 2023, and that is double what it used to be, because contracts signed before that date attracted just $15,000. The doubling is the single biggest change to first home support in Queensland in years, yet older articles still quote the old figure, so check any advice you read against the date your contract is signed. Owner-builders are treated on the same basis, with the amount turning on when the foundations were laid. The Queensland Revenue Office landing page references the 2026 State Budget and states no change to either the $30,000 amount or the value cap, so those figures stand as at September 2026.
Who Qualifies
Eligibility is tested on you as a person, on your history of property ownership, and on the property itself. The applicant criteria are the part buyers most often assume they pass without checking, so run through each point before you fall in love with a block of land. The Queensland Revenue Office lists the full eligibility criteria, which break down as follows:
Age and applicant type
Citizenship or residency
No prior ownership
New home only
Under the value cap
Occupancy commitment
Which Properties It Covers
The property type test is where most disappointed applications originate, because the grant distinguishes sharply between a new home and an established one. A quick comparison puts the boundaries in one place:
| Property situation | Grant eligibility |
|---|---|
| Newly built home, never occupied | Eligible if total value is under $750,000 |
| Off-the-plan purchase in a yet-to-be-built development | Eligible if total value is under $750,000 |
| Contract to build with a registered builder | Eligible if the contract plus land value is under $750,000 |
| Owner-built home | Eligible, with the amount set by when foundations were laid |
| Substantially renovated home completed by the seller | Eligible in limited circumstances |
| Established home, any price | Not eligible |
| Cosmetic renovation of an existing home | Not eligible, as a kitchen remodel or new carpet is not a substantial renovation |
The renovation test is stricter than it sounds. Most of the building must have been removed or replaced for the work to count as substantial, so a beautifully modernised older house fails. If you are weighing a build against an established purchase, the construction loans page explains how lenders fund the contract-to-build route the grant depends on.
Why The Rule Bites Here
Greenbank is a pleasant place to buy and an awkward place to claim the grant, because the rule is built around new stock and this suburb has almost none. The mandatory connection between the eligibility rule and the local market looks like this:
The Stock Is Almost Entirely Established
At 98.3 per cent of dwellings being separate houses and only 0.3 per cent flats or apartments, Greenbank is as close to a pure established-housing suburb as Queensland gets. Across 2,895 dwellings, the homes on the market here are overwhelmingly houses someone has already lived in, which means the grant's new-home test screens out nearly everything you would actually want to buy locally.
New Approvals Are Essentially Zero
The building statistics here are startling: dwelling approvals across the last five years number just one, placing Greenbank in the lowest percentile for building activity in the state. There is no pipeline of new homes coming that would change this picture soon. A grant buyer searching only within Greenbank is searching a market that produces almost nothing the grant can be claimed on.
Where Eligible Stock Actually Sits
The eligible new stock for grant purposes sits in the growth corridors around you rather than within Greenbank itself. Spring Mountain, New Beith and Boronia Heights all carry active land releases and house and land packages where the contract-to-build structure the grant expects is normal. Median household income here runs about $2,240 a week, so serviceability is rarely the binding constraint; finding a qualifying property is.
What That Means For Your Search
The practical adjustment is to separate the two decisions: claim the grant where the eligible stock exists, or buy established in Greenbank and forgo the $30,000 but gain the duty concession instead. Families who choose the build route should understand how a guarantor or low deposit structure can bridge the deposit gap while the grant is pending, because the payment does not arrive early. Guarantors in either case should obtain independent legal and financial advice before signing anything.
How It Stacks With Duty Relief
Here is the part most grant articles skip: the grant is not the only money on the table. Queensland runs a separate first home transfer duty concession, and the two schemes have different property type rules, different value thresholds and different occupancy tests. Understanding where they overlap changes which properties are worth shortlisting:
New home under $750,000
Established home at $700,000 or under
Established home between $700,001 and $799,999
Above $800,000
Renting out part of the home
Different citizenship test
One caution on the arithmetic: the duty concession's occupancy rule requires you to move in with personal belongings and live there daily within one year of settlement, and it cannot be extended. Neither scheme permits a strategy of buying, renting the place out and claiming later.
How it works
How To Apply And When Money Arrives
Timing is where grant assumptions do the most damage, because the money lands later than most buyers plan for. The application routes and their payment points work like this:
- 1
Applying Through Your Lender
Lodging through an approved agent, typically your bank or lender at loan application time, is the fastest route, and when buying the grant is generally paid at settlement. This is the route most buyers should take, because it folds the grant into paperwork you are completing anyway and the funds arrive when you need them most.
- 2
Applying Directly To The Revenue Office
Lodging directly with the Queensland Revenue Office means the grant is not paid until the home is complete and every supporting document has been supplied. On a contract to build, that can be many months after you sign, so budget your deposit and progress payments without assuming the grant fills any gap along the way.
- 3
Building Or Owner-Builder Timing
For a contract to build or an owner-builder project, payment comes after completion, on presentation of the final inspection certificate or certificate of occupancy. Given that a house and land package is treated as a contract-to-build transaction for value testing too, get the land value and build contract considered together before signing.
- 4
The Deadline
You have one year to apply: within one year of taking possession and title registration when buying, or within one year of completion when building. Miss it and the entitlement lapses, so diarise the date at settlement rather than trusting memory. If you want the application lodged through your lender from day one, the first home buyer loans process sets out how that runs.
Worth knowing early
What Gets An Application Knocked Back
The Queensland Revenue Office sees the same failures repeatedly, and every one of them is avoidable with a careful contract review before you sign. These are the common reasons applications are refused:
- Buying established The most frequent error of all, assuming an older home qualifies. It does not, at any price point.
- Landing on the cap A total value of $750,000 or more means refusal, not a reduced grant. Contract variations count towards the figure, so price movement during a build can push a once-eligible package over.
- Split contract structures A house and land package written as a land contract plus a separate building contract is a contract-to-build deal, and the value test then includes the unencumbered land value at the contract date.
- Rising land values Land bought years earlier that has appreciated can push the combined build value past the cap even though it qualified when purchased.
- Non-comprehensive contracts A building contract with benchtops or electrical work excluded fails the comprehensive contract test, which is a drafting problem with your builder, not a lending one.
- Occupancy failures Moving in later than one year after completion, or leaving before six continuous months, forfeits the grant outside exceptional circumstances.
- Prior ownership A spouse's forgotten investment property or an inherited dwelling anywhere in Australia disqualifies the application, because the test covers both applicants.
- Wrong applicant structure Applying as a company or a trust fails outright, so restructure before you sign, not after.
Before signing anything on a house and land package, it is worth having the contract structure and combined value tested against the cap, and you can read about who sits behind the advice on the About page.
Where we work
Areas We Service
Your Mortgage Broker Greenbank serves Greenbank and the surrounding Logan growth corridor, where most of the region's grant-eligible new stock actually sits. We work with buyers in Forest Lake, Camira, Boronia Heights, Munruben, New Beith and Spring Mountain, covering first purchases, construction finance and refinancing across each of those suburbs.
Questions answered
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is the QLD First Home Owner Grant worth?
Contracts signed on or after 20 November 2023 attract $30,000. Contracts signed before that date attract $15,000, so the signing date on your contract decides which amount applies.
Can I get the grant on an established home?
No. The Queensland Revenue Office is explicit that there are no home owner grants for established homes, at any price. Only new or substantially renovated homes qualify.
What is the property price cap for the grant?
The home and land together must be valued at less than $750,000, including any contract variations. At $750,000 or more the grant is refused outright, not reduced.
Do I have to live in the property to keep the grant?
Yes. You must move in within one year of completion and live there continuously for six months. The Commissioner can only waive this in exceptional circumstances.
Is the grant different from stamp duty relief?
Yes, they are separate schemes. The grant applies only to new homes, while the first home duty concession also covers established homes valued at $700,000 or under.
How long does the grant take to arrive?
Applying through an approved agent such as your lender is the fastest route, generally paid at settlement. Applying directly to the Queensland Revenue Office means waiting until the home is complete.
Mortgage broker for Greenbank and the suburbs around it
Get In Touch
If you are weighing the grant against an established purchase and want the arithmetic run properly before you commit, speak with Your Mortgage Broker Greenbank at Your Mortgage Broker Greenbank. Call (07) 3523 7109 for a conversation that costs nothing and commits you to nothing, with our fee and commission structure published and our process documented, or review our licence details in the footer below.