First Home Buyer House and Land Perth

Why new builds get the deepest support

The $10,000 First Home Owner Grant applies only to newly built homes, which means a first home buyer purchasing established gets the duty concessions and a low deposit scheme, while a first home buyer building gets all of that plus the grant. Policy has been pushed deliberately toward new construction, and Perth is one of the few capitals where typical house and land packages in the growth corridors still sit comfortably under every scheme cap.

The mechanics of the package itself, two contracts, land settling first, the build drawing down in stages, are covered in our house and land finance Perth guide. This page is about the support layers on top and, just as important, the order they arrive in.

The stack, scheme by scheme

1. Getting the deposit together

Three tools target the deposit problem, and you generally pick a lane rather than combining them all. The First Home Guarantee lets eligible buyers purchase with a 5% deposit and no LMI on properties up to $850,000 in Perth, through participating lenders, with no income cap since 1 October 2025. Keystart, the WA Government lender, can go as low as a 2% deposit for eligible buyers, with income and purchase price caps. And the First Home Super Saver Scheme lets you withdraw up to $50,000 of voluntary super contributions to boost the deposit itself. Guarantee or Keystart is an either/or choice for most buyers; the FHSS can feed the deposit under either path.

If none of those get the deposit over the line, there is a fourth path that sits outside the schemes: a family guarantee, where a parent pledges part of their own equity to close the gap. It has its own risks and rules for the parents, covered plainly in our guide to guarantor home loans in WA.

2. The $10,000 grant

The First Home Owner Grant pays $10,000 on eligible new builds where the combined house and land value is up to $800,000, a cap raised from $750,000 on 7 May 2026. Eligibility rules, including the requirement to occupy the home within 12 months of completion for at least six continuous months, are covered in our FHOG WA guide. The critical fact for a house and land package: on a construction loan the grant is paid at the first progress draw, the slab stage, not at land settlement.

3. Stamp duty relief

On a two-contract package, transfer duty is assessed on the land contract rather than the combined package price, and the first home buyer concessions then apply on top. Under current law the full exemption covers homes to $500,000 and vacant land to $350,000, with a sliding concession to $700,000 in Metro and Peel and $750,000 in regional WA. A May 2026 proposal would lift the home thresholds to $600,000 and $800,000, but it is not yet in effect. Current thresholds and the proposed changes are in our WA stamp duty guide; put your own land price through the stamp duty calculator to see your number.

When each piece actually pays

The stack is not a pile of money handed over at the start. Each layer lands at a different point in the purchase, and the sequence is where first home buyers get caught:

1. Before you sign: deposit and eligibility The FHSS withdrawal, your savings history for the guarantee's genuine savings test, and your Keystart or guarantee eligibility all get sorted here. So does pre-approval, structured for a construction loan, not a standard purchase.
2. Land settlement: money goes out Your deposit and any duty on the land are due in cleared funds. The grant has not arrived and cannot be counted toward this. What settlement day involves, and the timing risk on untitled lots, is covered in our settlement process guide.
3. Slab stage: the grant arrives The $10,000 FHOG is paid at the first construction drawdown. From here the build draws down stage by stage and you pay interest only on what has been drawn.
4. Practical completion: keys and conversion The loan converts to a standard home loan, you move in, and the FHOG occupancy clock starts: into the home within 12 months of completion, living there for at least six continuous months.

The mistakes that break the stack

• Counting the FHOG toward land settlement. It arrives at the slab draw, months later. Settlement funds come from savings and approved sources only.
• Upgrading past the caps. Variations and upgrades lift the total house and land value. Drift past $800,000 and the grant is gone; past $850,000 and the guarantee is too. Leave headroom before you sign, not after.
• Assuming Keystart and the guarantee combine. They target the same problem and you will generally use one or the other. Picking the wrong one for your income and price point costs real money, so compare before applying.
• A partner's old property. If either joint applicant has owned residential property in Australia before, the FHOG is off the table for both. The rule applies to the transaction, not each person separately.
• Burning borrowing capacity to the last dollar. Site works, variations and provisional cost overruns need somewhere to go. A stack that only works at 100 percent of capacity is a stack that breaks mid-build.

A useful first pass on your own numbers: the borrowing capacity calculator for what you could borrow, then a conversation before anything is signed. We check every scheme against your actual circumstances, pick the deposit path, and sequence the whole thing so the money is where it needs to be on the days it needs to be there.

For the build side of the numbers, our construction loan calculator shows how the progress drawdowns work and what interest accrues before handover, which matters when every dollar is scheduled.

Frequently asked questions