SA first home buyers
SA First Home Owner Grant
The First Home Owner Grant is a one-off payment from the South Australian government for people buying or building their first home, provided the property is new and never previously lived in, and provided the buyer meets the eligibility rules.
Your Mortgage Broker Henley Beach arranges home finance for buyers across the western coastal suburbs of Adelaide, and this page covers what the grant is worth, who qualifies, which properties it covers, how it stacks with stamp duty relief, and what commonly gets applications knocked back.
What It Is Worth Right Now, and Why the Rules Just Changed
The payment is worth up to fifteen thousand dollars, paid once per eligible transaction, and the surprising part is what changed in June 2024. RevenueSA removed the property value cap for contracts entered into on or after 6 June 2024, which means a new home at any price can now qualify where the previous rules excluded expensive ones. Most older articles online still quote the scrapped cap, so check anything you read against RevenueSA's current page before you rely on it. The grant also cannot be earned twice: it is a once-only payment, and a person who has previously received it in any state or territory is not eligible again.
Who Qualifies
Eligibility is set by RevenueSA, and the full rules sit on its eligibility page. The core conditions, described in plain terms, are these:
You have not owned property before
You meet the age and residency requirements
The home will be where you live
You are buying or building new
Everyone on the title qualifies
You apply within the allowed window
Which Properties It Covers
The distinction is new versus established, and it is a hard line. Here is how the two schemes line up:
| Property type | Grant | First home buyer duty relief |
|---|---|---|
| New house, unit, apartment or townhouse never lived in | Yes | Yes |
| Off-the-plan purchase | Yes | Yes |
| House and land package | Yes | Yes |
| Comprehensive building contract | Yes | Yes |
| Vacant land to build a new home | No | Yes |
| Established home previously lived in | No | No |
Notice the one asymmetry: a block of land to build on attracts the duty relief but not the grant itself, because the grant attaches to the completed new home, including owner-builder projects. If you are buying established, neither scheme helps in South Australia, and no amount of paperwork changes that.
Why The Rule Bites Here
The grant only pays on new dwellings, and that rule lands differently here than it does in Adelaide's growth corridors, because the shape of the local housing stock limits what an eligible buyer can actually choose.
Established Stock Dominates the Foreshore
Henley Beach is an established coastal suburb where separate houses make up about 57.6 per cent of dwellings and flats or apartments about 22.1 per cent, according to the suburb data, and nearly all of it has been lived in before. A buyer set on a period home near the jetty is shopping outside the scheme entirely.
New Builds Do Happen, But They Are Scarce
Building activity here runs in the state's ninetieth percentile, with 588 dwellings approved over the last five years, so new stock does appear, much of it along the esplanade and infill sites. That still averages barely more than one hundred approvals a year, which is thin pickings for a whole suburb's worth of first home buyers.
The Gap Between Eligible and Desirable
What is eligible and what is desirable rarely overlap at the beach. A new apartment two streets back from the sea may qualify, while the renovated bungalow on a tree-lined street does not, and the median household here carries a mortgage repayment of about $2,000 a month, which hints at the price level established homes command.
What That Means for Your Search
Practically, a grant-driven buyer in Henley Beach should search new developments, off-the-plan releases and house and land opportunities, or widen the circle to suburbs where new stock is more common. Our construction loans page covers the lending side of building new, and guarantor and low deposit structures can help when the deposit is the constraint rather than the stock.
How It Stacks With Duty Relief
This is where South Australia's scheme has become unusually generous, and where the interaction between the two schemes does the heavy lifting:
Two schemes, both from RevenueSA
No duty at any value on new homes
Vacant land qualifies too
Established homes get neither
The combined effect is large
How it works
How To Apply And When The Money Arrives
The application process is simpler than most buyers expect, mainly because someone else usually does the paperwork for you.
- 1
Your Lender Usually Lodges It
In the majority of cases the bank or lender providing your finance lodges the application as an approved agent, which means the grant is handled alongside your loan approval with no separate form from you. Apply directly to RevenueSA only where your lender does not offer that service.
- 2
Direct Lodgement Still Works
If your lender is not an approved agent, or you are an owner-builder or arranging finance outside a mainstream lender, you can lodge with RevenueSA yourself. The eligibility tests are identical, but the administration, evidence and follow-up sit with you rather than the lender.
- 3
Payment Timing Depends on the Transaction
RevenueSA pays the grant once the eligible transaction completes, and the timing differs between buying an already-built new home and drawing payments progressively through a construction contract. The accessible pages do not publish exact dates, so confirm the schedule for your situation before you rely on the money arriving by a particular milestone.
- 4
Your First Home Buyer Loan Runs in Parallel
The grant application and your loan application share evidence and timelines, and a hold-up in one often delays the other. Our first home buyer loans page sets out how the finance side runs, and our About page explains how we work and what it costs.
Worth knowing early
What Gets An Application Knocked Back
Most declined applications trace back to a handful of avoidable mistakes, and every one of them is checkable before you sign anything:
- Buying established and expecting the money The most common knock-back in the state is a buyer of a previously lived-in home assuming the grant or the duty relief applies. Neither does, at any price.
- Trusting out-of-date articles on the cap Older pages quote the former value cap and banded duty thresholds, but for contracts on or after 6 June 2024 no value cap applies to the grant and no duty threshold applies to new homes.
- No genuine intention to live there The home must be your principal place of residence for the required period, so buying to rent out straight away, or for a relative to occupy, fails the test.
- Assuming the lender handled everything Some buyers rely on the lender to lodge and discover later that nothing was ever submitted, which is why confirming lodgement in writing is worth a five-minute email.
- A co-buyer who fails the tests If one person on the title has owned property before or has already received a grant, the whole application can be affected, so check every applicant's history before contracts are exchanged.
Where we work
Areas We Service
Your Mortgage Broker Henley Beach works with first home buyers across the City of Charles Sturt's coastal strip, including Grange, Fulham Gardens, Fulham and Henley Beach South, where the same new-versus-established arithmetic applies to every purchase. If you are weighing a new build against an established home in any of these suburbs, the first conversation is about which scheme, if either, your shortlist actually qualifies for.
Questions answered
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is the SA First Home Owner Grant worth?
Up to $15,000, paid once. It applies to a new home that has never been lived in, including off-the-plan purchases, house and land packages and comprehensive building contracts, provided you meet the eligibility rules.
Can I get the grant on an established home?
No. In South Australia the grant and the first home buyer duty relief both apply to new homes only. An established home that someone has lived in before attracts neither scheme, no matter its price.
What is the property price cap for the grant?
There is no value cap. For contracts entered into on or after 6 June 2024, RevenueSA removed the former cap, so a new home at any price can qualify if the eligibility rules are met.
Do I have to live in the property to keep the grant?
Yes. The home must become your principal place of residence for the period RevenueSA requires. Buying it as a holiday house or to rent out immediately disqualifies the application.
Is the grant different from stamp duty relief?
Yes, they are separate schemes. The grant is a payment of up to $15,000 from RevenueSA. The duty relief is a separate concession that removes stamp duty on eligible new homes and vacant land.
How long does the grant take to arrive?
In most cases your lender lodges the application as an approved agent, and payment is made once the eligible transaction completes. Lodging directly with RevenueSA runs longer than going through your lender.
Mortgage broker for Henley Beach and the suburbs around it
Get In Touch
Questions about the grant are really questions about your deposit, your borrowing capacity and which property types fit both. Call (08) 8451 3906 to talk it through with a broker who works from a panel of lenders, discloses fees and commissions in writing, and will tell you plainly whether the grant changes your numbers or not.