NSW first home buyers
NSW First Home Owner Grant
The NSW First Home Owner Grant is a one-off payment of $10,000 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.
Your Mortgage Broker Terranora(/) is a mortgage broking business serving Terranora and the wider Tweed Shire, and this page sets out what the grant is worth, who qualifies, which properties it covers, how it interacts with stamp duty relief and where eligible stock actually sits around the Tweed.
What It Is Worth Right Now
The confirmed amount is a one-off payment of $10,000, paid once per transaction and once per applicant in a lifetime. That figure surprises people because older articles and some third-party sites still quote $30,000, an amount that has not applied for years and cannot be verified against any current government source. If a page or a well-meaning relative quotes you anything other than $10,000, check it against Revenue NSW before you build a deposit plan around it.
The 2026-27 NSW Budget, handed down on 23 June 2026, made no changes to the grant amount or the value caps, so the settings described on this page are the ones in force today. That stability matters for planning: you can work out your deposit, your borrowing capacity and your target price band with reasonable confidence that the goalposts will not move mid-search. It is still worth confirming the rules on the Revenue NSW pages linked throughout, because eligibility dates and thresholds have changed before and will change again.
Who Qualifies
Eligibility turns on who you are, what you have owned before and what you are buying. Each test below must be met, and Revenue NSW checks all of them at application:
Natural persons only
Citizenship or residency
No prior ownership
The new-home test
The value cap
The occupancy rule
Once per lifetime
Which Properties It Covers
The property type and the contract structure decide which cap applies, so it pays to know where you sit before you sign anything:
| Purchase structure | Property type | Value cap | Grant available |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home and land under one contract | New, off-the-plan or substantially renovated, never occupied | $600,000 | Yes |
| Vacant land plus separate building contract | New build, combined land and construction value | $750,000 combined | Yes |
| Established home, any price | Previously lived in or sold | Not eligible | No |
The last row is the one that catches people. Revenue NSW is explicit that an established home, meaning one someone has previously lived in or sold, does not qualify for the grant at any price. The cap does not rescue it and no concession applies to the grant itself.
Why The Rule Bites Here
The new-home test would be a footnote in a suburb full of off-the-plan apartments. Terranora is the opposite, and the census facts explain the squeeze:
Almost No Apartments
Only 0.6 per cent of Terranora dwellings are flats or apartments, with 98.6 per cent of the suburb made up of separate houses. The townhouse and unit developments that typically deliver new, grant-eligible stock barely exist here, so the grant-eligible share of local listings is thin by nature.
Small Build Pipeline
Just 72 dwellings were approved across Terranora in the past five years, and the suburb sits in the 22nd percentile for building activity within NSW. New supply trickles rather than flows, which means grant-eligible properties appear occasionally and often sell quickly when they do.
A Narrow Band Of Stock
The gap between eligible and desirable is real. The few new or substantially renovated homes that do reach the market must also land under the value cap, so buyers are searching for a property that satisfies two tests at once, in a suburb where barely anything new gets built in a given year.
What It Means For Your Search
Treat Terranora as one part of a wider hunt. Banora Point, Tweed Heads South and the surrounding southern Tweed carry more recent construction than Terranora itself, and a buyer willing to look across those neighbouring suburbs will see far more grant-eligible listings than one searching a single postcode.
How It Stacks With Duty Relief
The grant is one of two schemes, and the other one covers a much wider group of buyers. The First Home Buyers Assistance Scheme is administered separately by Revenue NSW and works like this:
Full duty exemption to $800,000
Sliding concession to $1,000,000
Vacant land has its own bands
Both schemes can stack
The 2026-27 Budget changed neither scheme
How it works
How To Apply And When Money Arrives
Applications are not lodged with Revenue NSW first. They run through the lending system, and the timing depends on the stage of your purchase:
- 1
Lodge Through The Lender
Most applications go through an approved bank or lender acting as agent for Revenue NSW, lodged at the same time as the home loan application. Where no approved agent is involved, the application goes directly to Revenue NSW instead.
- 2
Payment At Settlement
For a home that is already built and ready to occupy, the grant is generally paid at settlement. It can be applied against your purchase costs, which is why the grant is often described as part of the deposit conversation rather than money that lands in your account afterwards.
- 3
Off-The-Plan Timing
For an off-the-plan purchase, payment still comes at settlement, but that settlement can sit well beyond the contract date depending on developer completion. Buyers in long-dated off-the-plan contracts should not count on the grant arriving early in the journey.
- 4
Construction Contracts
For a build under a construction contract, the grant is typically paid once the first progress payment is made to the builder. Buyers using a construction loan should expect the grant to arrive early in the build rather than at the end, and can read more about the lending side on the construction loans page.
Worth knowing early
What Gets An Application Knocked Back
Revenue NSW publishes the failure modes, and most of them are avoidable with a check before you sign. The common ones:
- Wrong property type Assuming any first home qualifies rather than checking the new-home test is the single most common mistake, and it applies to the established home most buyers actually want.
- Prior ownership anywhere An applicant or their partner having owned residential property anywhere in Australia, even briefly or interstate, disqualifies the application.
- Over the cap by a little A contract price marginally above $600,000 or $750,000 disqualifies the whole application. It does not reduce the grant to match.
- Wrong applicant structure Applying as a company or trust rather than as a natural person fails the eligibility test outright.
- Missing the occupancy window Not moving in within 12 months, or moving out before completing 12 months of continuous residence, can cost you the grant after the fact.
- Incomplete documents Identity, contract and citizenship evidence must all be complete at lodgement, and gaps slow or sink the application.
Where we work
Areas We Service
From Terranora we work with first home buyers right across the southern Tweed, and the same grant rules apply in every one of these suburbs: Chinderah, Banora Point, Bilambil Heights, Tweed Heads South and Tweed Heads West. Where the eligible stock is thinnest locally, the neighbouring suburbs often carry the newest listings.
Questions answered
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is the NSW First Home Owner Grant worth?
The grant is a one-off payment of $10,000 per eligible transaction. 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. An established home qualifies for duty relief only, not the grant.
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 land and construction value must stay under $750,000.
Do I have to live in the property to keep the grant?
Yes. For contracts from 1 July 2023 you must move in within 12 months of settlement or completion and live there continuously as your main residence for at least 12 months.
Is the grant different from stamp duty relief?
Yes, they are separate schemes. Duty relief under the First Home Buyers Assistance Scheme covers new and established homes up to set thresholds, while the $10,000 grant applies to new homes only.
How long does the grant take to arrive?
A finished home is generally paid at settlement, an off-the-plan purchase at its later settlement, and a construction build after the first progress payment. Lodgement runs through an approved lender or Revenue NSW.
Mortgage broker for Terranora and the suburbs around it
Get In Touch
If you are weighing up a new build against an established purchase and want to know how the grant and the duty relief change the sums, call (02) 9072 0668 for a free, no-obligation conversation with Your Mortgage Broker Terranora. Every figure on this page links to Revenue NSW, our fee structure is disclosed in writing before you commit to anything, and Your Mortgage Broker Terranora will tell you plainly if a purchase you have your eye on falls outside both schemes.