The First Home Owners Grant in Queensland, is it going to still be available next year?
Can you still get it now?
We're going to answer all these questions and more in this video.
So Nathan, start from the top.
Is the First Home Owners Grant still available in Queensland?
The First Home Owners Grant is still 100% available, it's for brand-new
purchases whether it'd be for construction or off the planned purchases and at the moment,
it's $15,000 which the government will give you for purchasing
a brand new property or constructing.
Yeah, so the only caveat is it's not available on existing homes.
So if the property's been lived in before, if it's a houseboat, if it's a car boat,
you can't do it, basically.
But if it's a brand-new constructed home that no one's ever lived in before
or if it's a block of land that you're going to build on yourself,
you've got $15,000 from the government.
And one quick tip for those that are building their mansion, it can't be over $750,000
in total value whether it'd be build or purchased, so just remember that one there.
For those of you that remember, the First Home Owners Grant used to be $20,000.
Now, it recently changed in the middle of this year, in 2018, so Jayden, what happened?
Why did it reduce?
So the government reviews the First Home Owners Grant every year
and in Queensland last year, they decided to reduce it from $20,000 to $15,000.
But the good news is if, say you sign the contract before June 30, 2018
or you signed a build contract before June 30, 2018,
you can still claim the $20,000 First Home Owners Grant.
You've got a couple of years, actually after even you've moved into
a brand-new home, as long as it will go with the documentation together to claim
the First Home Owners Grant. But unfortunately,
if you didn't sign a contract before then, you're in the eligible
for the $15,000 First Home Owners Grant.
So Nathan, what are the rules in applying for First Home Owners Grant?
What makes you eligible? What makes you ineligible?
Firstly, you've got to be over 18 years old. - No babies getting it.
And the other thing to remember is if your partner or yourself have ever
owned property before, it automatically disqualifies you from owning
or receiving the First Home Owners Grant. - And that's also owning in your personal name.
So there can be some tricky complexities here if you own a property in companies before
-- investment properties -- if that's the case, it's best to talk to the Queensland Office
of State Revenue and clarify if you're eligible for the First Home Owners Grant or not.
There's plenty of calculators online as well, so if you do want to
check your eligibility, jump online.
We've got a link in our website that will give you an idea if you qualify or not.
And the last thing to make sure that you're eligible for
the First Home Owners Grant is that you actually have to live in the property.
So there's an actual rule as a part of the grant that you need to move in within
the first 12 months of owning the property and living it for at least six months to qualify
for the First Home Owners Grant.
Now, there's a bit of a complexity here and a bit of a trick that you might not actually know.
As a first home buyer, you get some concessions on stamp duty too and transfer duty.
There's a weird thing here, Nathan. I don't know if you knew.
I've only found this when I start researching this stuff that to get the first home
ownership stamp duty concession, so you get cheaper stamp duty
because it's your first home, you actually have to live in the place for 12 months,
so not just six months. So it's really weird there where
to get the First Home Owners Grant, to get $10,000, you have to live in there
for six months but to get the stamp duty concession as well,
you've got to live in it for 12 months. So it's all this stuff that's really weird.
You've got to check it out and again, to be really careful because they can actually
take the First Home Owners Grant away from you.
Another really weird eligibility thing that I found out is with the First Home Owners Grant,
you can actually rent out a room in your house, which is really cool.
So you can move in there, rent out a room to your mate, and make some money as long as
you are living there as your primary place of residence, you're sweet.
But if you get the concession, the stamp duty concession,
you're not allowed to rent any rooms in that house. You can't make any income from it.
There's all these weird things in there that if you're not sure, call the Office
of State Revenue because I've had cases and I've seen clients where
the Office of State Revenue have actually taken that money back.
So they've rented out a room, they thought they're really clever, they'd move out
and get the post up there and it's all good and the government came knocking on their door
and asking for their money back. So just really be really careful, be mindful of it.
You know, it's free money but there's a few terms of conditions that you really want to check out
and make sure you don't get caught out. So Nathan,
can the First Home Owners Grant be use as a deposit?
It can. So the $15,000 can be utilized towards your deposit when used to purchase a house.
So what that means is if you're falling short on funds available, the First Home Owners Grant,
use it, count it towards a purchase deposit.
Now, the only tough thing here is it usually, isn't enough to form your full deposit,
unless you buy in like a tiny unit in somewhere in Brisbane or in Queensland that's under say, $300,000.
It's pretty rare that the whole First Home Owners Grant will be enough
to make up your deposit. So like we said in other videos,
you usually need to aim for about between 8% to 10%
of the purchase price in savings as deposit.
But like Nathan said, if you're buying something for $400,000, you need $40,000 in savings.
You've already got $15,000 so you're more than halfway there or almost halfway there, anyway.
So Jayden, when do I get paid my First Home Owners Grant?
Dollar, dollar bill. You get paid depending on what you're buying.
So if you're buying a brand new apartment or townhouse that's been completed,
you can get paid the First Home Owners Grant on settlement of that property.
So the good thing is it can go towards your bank deposit and you get that money right away.
But if you're building a home \or you're buying land,
you don't get the First Home Owners Grant straight away.
It's a bit of a tricky one. So if you're buying a house and land for example,
you have to buy the land, you have to settle the land,
you're getting no money. You need to then get a builder,
the builder start, the builder will put the slab down,
and at that say, generally, you can get your First Home Owners Grant released
and it can go towards the build cost. So it can be a bit tricky.
You've got to have like we said a little bit earlier, a bit more deposit saved up
because you can't entirely rely on that 100% for your deposit.
And lastly Jayden, tell me how do I apply for the First Home Owners Grant?
Do I go to the Office of State Revenue directly?
Does a bank help me? Do you help me? How does it all work?
Have you ever been to a government agency? - I can't imagine.
How hard it would be if you went to Office of State Revenue.
Don't do that. So there's a couple of forms online.
Like Nathan said earlier, we've got an eligibility test.
You can download the forms from our website to check it out.
It's pretty simple. There's seven or eight sections on the form.
It's like 15 pages.
The Section 1 has you know, your personal name, your details.
It has eligibility questions, so if you owned a property before,
if the property is worth over $750,000, you can't get it.
You've got to fill that out. It has a section of the property's details.
It's got all that basic government form stuff.
The good thing is if you apply for a home loan through Hunter Galloway,
we actually help you complete that form, so you have a lot of that information all in there.
So it can actually be not too hard.
You just need the form and then some other supporting documents stuff like your ID.
You need to show evidence of the property, the contract for sale.
You might need to get a certificate from the property developer or the person
that built the property saying that, "It hasn't been lived in before."
There's a few other things there that just depend on the situation.
So if you want more information on this, check at out our website at HunterGalloway.com.au.
Definitely check out that eligibility tool.
It's actually pretty handy and I think you can find it pretty useful.
And if you got any questions, make sure you hit us up or leave a comment below.
Thanks guys.