VIC first home buyers
VIC First Home Owner Grant
The First Home Owner Grant in Victoria is a one-off payment of $10,000 from the State Revenue Office to eligible first home buyers who buy or build a new home valued up to $750,000.
Your Mortgage Broker Dingley Village(/) works with first home buyers across Melbourne's south east, and this page covers what the grant pays, who qualifies, which properties are covered, how it combines with duty relief, and where eligible stock around Dingley Village actually sits.
One Payment, One Amount, Statewide
The surprising part for most first-time buyers is how simple the payment structure is: there is a single grant of $10,000 for the whole state, and that is the entire scheme. Victoria once paid a larger amount for homes in regional areas, but that separate regional first home owner grant is now a closed scheme that does not apply to current contracts, so any figure you see quoted for regional Victoria is out of date.
That means a buyer in Dingley Village and a buyer in Bendigo are chasing the same $10,000, which changes the arithmetic of the search. The grant is not indexed to purchase price, not paid per applicant, and not split across stages of a build. It lands once, tied to one eligible transaction, and it never scales up. Buyers who remember an older relative talking about a bigger payment in the country are recalling a scheme that has ended, and planning around a figure that no longer exists is one of the more common mistakes we see at the start of a first purchase.
Who Qualifies
Eligibility is decided by the State Revenue Office against a fixed list of criteria, and every applicant in the transaction is measured against them. The main tests, all sourced from the SRO's eligibility page, are:
Every applicant must qualify
Age and status
No prior ownership
Occupancy commitment
A new home, not an existing one
The value cap
The application deadline
Which Properties It Covers
The eligible property list is narrower than most buyers expect, so it pays to check the transaction type before you commit to a contract rather than after:
| Property type | Grant eligible | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Newly built house, townhouse, apartment or unit | Yes | Must never have been sold, leased out, or used for short-term accommodation |
| Substantially renovated home | Yes | The renovation must have created a new home, not a cosmetic refurbishment |
| Home built to replace a demolished one | Yes | The build must replace the previous dwelling on the same land |
| Off-the-plan purchase | Yes | The cap is measured on the contract price, not the finished value |
| Established (previously occupied) home | No | No grant at any price, though duty relief may still apply separately |
| Company or trust purchase | No | Applicants must be natural persons |
The line that catches people out is the one about prior use. A brand-new townhouse that was leased to a tenant for six months before you found it fails the test, because the SRO treats it as a home that has already been occupied rather than a new home. Ask the selling agent directly whether the property has been leased or used for short-term stays, and get the answer in writing before you sign anything.
Why The Rule Bites Here
Almost nothing new is built
Dingley Village is an established suburb of separate houses on conventional blocks, with census data recording no flats or apartments among its roughly 3,800 dwellings and around eighty per cent of homes being detached houses. Dwelling approvals tell the same story: only 18 approvals were recorded in 2021-22, and about 90 across the whole five-year window.
Where the stock actually sits
That building-activity level puts the suburb in the lowest third of the state for new construction, so genuinely eligible stock within Dingley Village itself is thin. Buyers chasing the grant here mostly look at townhouse developments on the Springvale and Keysborough side, or at a knock-down rebuild on land they already control.
Eligible is not the same as desirable
The gap between what qualifies and what people actually want to buy is real. A $10,000 payment against a $750,000 cap is a small fraction of the transaction, so the grant should shape the search, not decide it, and buying an unsuitable new home purely to unlock the payment rarely ends well.
What it means for your search
Practically, the buyers who use the grant well around here take one of two paths: a new townhouse in a neighbouring development suburb, which keeps them close to Dingley Village and within the cap, or construction finance for a build. Both routes have lending wrinkles of their own, which is where first home buyer loan advice earns its keep.
How It Stacks With Duty Relief
The grant is not the only money on the table, and for many buyers the second scheme is worth more. First home buyer duty relief is a completely separate scheme with its own thresholds, and the two combine:
Full duty exemption below $600,000
Sliding concession from $600,001 to $750,000
Established homes qualify for duty relief
Vacant land counts too
One claim only
The interaction, spelled out
The practical consequence is that the duty scheme, not the grant, often decides whether buying new or established makes more financial sense for a given buyer. Run both scenarios before choosing a property type, because the difference between the two paths is frequently larger than the grant payment itself.
How it works
How To Apply And When The Money Arrives
- 1
Where you lodge the claim
There are two routes, both set out on the SRO's First Home Owner Grant page: lodge through an approved agent, which in practice means your lender at the time you take out the home loan, or lodge directly with the State Revenue Office. Most buyers on a lender's loan use the agent route because it runs alongside the loan application.
- 2
The 12-month deadline
The application must be lodged within 12 months of settlement, or within 12 months of completion for a build, per the SRO's eligibility rules. Missing the window forfeits the payment entirely, so diarise the deadline the day you settle rather than trusting memory a year later.
- 3
When payment actually lands
The SRO pages do not publish fixed payment timeframes, and we will not invent dates the revenue office has not stated. What is clear is that payment follows once the eligible transaction completes, so a purchase settles and pays before a construction project that pays on completion of the build.
- 4
The obligation that outlasts payment
Receiving the money is not the end of it. At least one applicant must occupy the home as their principal place of residence for 12 continuous months starting within 12 months of settlement or completion, and renting the place out early puts the grant at risk of being recovered.
Worth knowing early
What Gets An Application Knocked Back
The SRO's own guidance points to a short list of recurring failures, and every one of them is avoidable with a contract read before signing rather than after:
- Buying an established home And assuming the grant applies to it. It does not, at any price point, and this is the single most common misunderstanding among first-time buyers we speak to.
- A "new" home that has been leased Or used for short-term accommodation before purchase fails the never-occupied test, so a unit that sat tenanted for three months after completion is not eligible.
- A contract price above $750,000 Disqualifies the transaction outright, and for off-the-plan buyers the test is the contract price rather than the eventual completed value.
- Breaking the occupancy rule Either by not living in the home for the full 12 continuous months or by starting occupation more than 12 months after settlement or completion of construction.
- Prior ownership or a prior grant By any applicant or their partner, including a property owned and occupied for six or more continuous months on or after 1 July 2000.
- Applying as a company or trust Because only natural persons qualify, a structure that catches buyers who purchase through a family trust for other reasons.
- Missing the 12-month application deadline After settlement or completion, which forfeits the payment entirely regardless of how clean the eligibility was.
Where we work
Areas We Service
Your Mortgage Broker Dingley Village works with first home buyers across Melbourne's south east from its Dingley Village base, and the grant rules on this page apply identically in every one of the neighbouring suburbs we serve: Clayton South, Springvale, Springvale South, Keysborough, Braeside and Mordialloc. Each has a different mix of new and established stock, which changes which scheme, grant or duty relief, does the heavy lifting.
Questions answered
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is the VIC First Home Owner Grant worth?
$10,000 as a one-off payment. The same amount applies across Victoria, including metropolitan Melbourne, because the separate regional grant scheme has closed and no longer applies to current contracts.
Can I get the grant on an established home?
No. The grant applies only to new homes, substantially renovated homes, or homes built to replace a demolished one. An established home can still qualify for the separate first home buyer duty exemption or concession.
What is the property price cap for the grant?
$750,000, measured on the contract price for off-the-plan purchases. Properties above that figure receive nothing, and the duty relief thresholds at $600,000 and $750,000 belong to a separate scheme with separate rules.
Do I have to live in the property to keep the grant?
Yes. At least one applicant must live in the home as their principal place of residence for at least 12 continuous months, starting within 12 months of settlement or completion of construction.
Is the grant different from stamp duty relief?
Yes, entirely. The grant is a $10,000 payment for new homes. Duty relief is a separate scheme that reduces or waives land transfer duty, and it covers established homes and vacant land as well.
How long does the grant take to arrive?
The SRO does not publish fixed payment dates. The grant is paid once the eligible transaction completes, and you must lodge within 12 months of settlement or completion, through your lender or directly with the SRO.
Mortgage broker for Dingley Village and the suburbs around it
Get In Touch
If you are weighing a new build against an established purchase and want the grant and duty arithmetic worked through properly, call (03) 9122 8522. You will deal with a named broker, see our published process with real timeframes, and get our fee and commission structure in writing before anything is lodged. You can also read more about how the business operates before you call.