QLD first home buyers
QLD First Home Owner Grant
The First Home Owner Grant is a Queensland government payment for first home buyers who buy or build a new home, including off-the-plan purchases, house and land packages and substantially renovated homes, provided the property value and applicant circumstances meet the eligibility rules.
Your Mortgage Broker Pullenvale is a mortgage broking business serving Pullenvale and the surrounding Brisbane western suburbs, and this page sets out the grant exactly as the Queensland Revenue Office publishes it. We cover what it is worth, who qualifies, which properties it covers, how it interacts with duty relief, and what the cap means for buyers searching locally.
What It Is Worth Right Now
The surprising fact is how quietly the grant doubled. Contracts signed on or after 20 November 2023 attract $30,000, double the $15,000 paid on earlier contracts, yet the older figure still circulates on pages nobody has updated since. If you have read a forum post or a checklist quoting $15,000, that figure is history, not current policy.
The Queensland Revenue Office landing page currently reflects the 2026 State Budget delivered on 23 June 2026, and no change to the $30,000 amount or the value cap is stated on the eligibility page. That is good news for anyone buying now, but it also means the figures on this page should be checked against the QRO site before you sign anything, because grants of this kind are changed by budget decisions without much notice. Owner-builders are treated separately: $30,000 applies where foundations are laid on or after 20 November 2023, and $15,000 before that date.
Who Qualifies
Eligibility is a checklist, and every item on it must be satisfied at the same time. These are the core requirements published by the Queensland Revenue Office:
Age and applicant type
Citizenship or residency
No prior ownership
A new home only
Under the value cap
Genuine occupancy
Which Properties It Covers
The property type rules decide eligibility before price even enters the conversation, so check this table against your contract first. The distinction that trips people up is new versus established, and the second is how a house and land package is legally structured:
| Property arrangement | Grant eligible? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Newly built house, unit, duplex or townhouse, never occupied | Yes | Qualifies as a new home under the eligibility rules |
| Off-the-plan purchase in a yet-to-be-completed development | Yes | Treated as a new home |
| Comprehensive home building contract to construct | Yes | A contract-to-build, with the value test including the land |
| Owner-built home | Yes | $30,000 where foundations were laid on or after 20 November 2023 |
| Substantially renovated home sold by the developer | Sometimes | Only where the seller completed a genuine substantial renovation in limited circumstances |
| Renovated older home with a new kitchen and carpets | No | Cosmetic work is not a substantial renovation; most of the building must have been removed or replaced |
| Established home, any price | No | The QRO states there are no home owner grants for established homes |
Why The Rule Bites Here
A rule that looks generous on paper behaves differently once you point it at a specific suburb. Pullenvale is not a suburb full of new townhouse stock, and the eligibility rules written for state-wide markets land unevenly here.
The Cap Meets Pullenvale
This is an established acreage-fringe suburb where nearly every dwelling is a separate house and more than four in five offer four or more bedrooms. Stock of that profile trades well above entry level, so the $750,000 cap, which includes contract variations, excludes much of what buyers actually want here before they have even compared listings.
Where New Stock Sits
Only 84 dwellings were approved across the suburb in the last five years, with just 15 approved in 2021-22, so genuinely new, never-occupied homes are rare on the ground. Apartments account for under one per cent of local dwellings, which means the unit projects that typically absorb first home grant activity barely exist in Pullenvale itself.
Eligible Versus Desirable
The gap between what qualifies and what buyers want is the real problem. A compliant new townhouse in a nearby growth corridor may clear the cap easily, while the four-bedroom house on a half acre that drew you to this postcode almost never does. Deciding which trade-off you can accept is the honest first step.
What It Means Locally
Buyers targeting this suburb generally need to widen the search to adjoining suburbs and new-build pockets where the cap still works, or accept that the grant is simply not available on their preferred purchase. Median household mortgage repayments here already sit around $3,000 a month, so budgeting without grant money is the safer planning assumption.
How It Stacks With Duty Relief
The grant is one scheme and duty relief is another, run by the same office but with different rules, and the differences matter more than most first home buyers expect. The first home transfer duty concession works like this:
Established homes qualify for duty relief
No duty under $700,000
A reduced band above that
A new home can claim both
Occupancy rules differ
Residency rules have tightened
How it works
How To Apply And When Money Arrives
The application route you choose changes how quickly the money lands, sometimes by months, so this decision deserves as much attention as the loan itself. The QRO application page sets out both paths.
- 1
Choose Your Application Route
Applying through an approved agent, typically your bank or lender at loan approval, is the fastest route, and when buying the grant is generally paid at settlement. Applying directly to the QRO means waiting until the home is complete and every supporting document has been supplied, which delays the payment considerably.
- 2
When The Money Arrives
For a contract to build or an owner-built home, payment comes after completion, together with the final inspection certificate or certificate of occupancy. Plan your cash flow around that timing, because progress payments to your builder will start well before any grant money appears in your account.
- 3
Deadlines You Cannot Miss
Buying applicants must lodge within one year of taking possession and title registration, and building applicants within one year of completion. Miss the window and the grant is gone, so diarise the deadline when the contract is signed rather than trusting memory twelve months later.
- 4
Documents To Have Ready
Identity and citizenship evidence, the signed contract, and proof the property meets the new-home definition form the core of every application. Building contracts also need the completion certificates, and assembling these before completion rather than after saves weeks at the end of an already slow process.
Worth knowing early
What Gets An Application Knocked Back
Most refusals are avoidable, and almost all of them happen at contract stage rather than at application stage. Every one of these comes straight from the QRO's own published guidance:
- Buying established and hoping The single most common mistake. No established home qualifies at any price, no matter how renovated or how recently built it looks.
- Landing exactly on the cap A contract value at or over $750,000 is refused outright. The grant is not reduced, it disappears, and contract variations count toward the total.
- Structuring a package as two contracts A house and land package written as a separate land contract plus a building contract is a contract-to-build transaction, and the value test then includes the land at the contract date.
- Land value drift Land bought years earlier can rise in value enough to push a later build over the cap, and the unencumbered value at the building contract date is what counts.
- An incomplete building contract A non-comprehensive contract with benchtops or electrical work excluded fails the contract-to-build test entirely, so check inclusions before signing.
- Occupancy failures Moving in later than one year after completion, or leaving before six continuous months, forfeits the grant outside exceptional circumstances.
- Prior ownership anywhere A spouse's half-share in an investment unit bought a decade ago disqualifies a joint application, because the test covers both applicants Australia-wide.
Where we work
Areas We Service
Your Mortgage Broker Pullenvale works with first home buyers across Pullenvale and the neighbouring western suburbs, and the same grant rules apply in each of them even though the eligible stock varies enormously between them. We service Upper Brookfield, Brookfield, Pinjarra Hills, Anstead and Kholo, and the first home buyer loans page covers how the lending side of a grant purchase works alongside the payment itself.
Questions answered
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is the QLD First Home Owner Grant worth?
Eligible contracts signed on or after 20 November 2023 attract $30,000. Contracts signed before that date attracted $15,000, which is why older pages still quote the lower figure.
Can I get the grant on an established home?
No. The Queensland Revenue Office states plainly that there are no home owner grants for established homes, at any price. Established buyers may still claim the first home duty concession.
What is the property price cap for the grant?
The total value of the home and land, including contract variations, must be less than $750,000. A contract at or above that figure 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 may extend this only in exceptional circumstances.
Is the grant different from stamp duty relief?
They are separate schemes. The grant applies to new homes only, while the first home transfer duty concession covers established or new homes valued under the relevant thresholds.
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. Direct applications to the Queensland Revenue Office are not paid until the home is complete.
Mortgage broker for Pullenvale and the suburbs around it
Get In Touch
If you are weighing a new build against established stock and want the grant and duty positions worked through properly before you commit, call (07) 3523 7115 to speak directly with an accountable broker. Your Mortgage Broker Pullenvale arranges lending through a panel of lenders, publishes its fee structure up front, and charges nothing for an initial conversation about whether a grant-eligible purchase stacks up for you.