WA first home buyers
WA First Home Owner Grant
The WA First Home Owner Grant is a one-off Western Australian government payment of up to $10,000 for first home buyers who buy or build a new or substantially renovated home, provided the property value sits within the state's cap and the buyers meet the residency and eligibility rules.
This page explains what the grant is worth right now, who qualifies, which properties it covers and how it interacts with transfer duty relief, then connects the eligibility rules to what is actually being built around Applecross and the City of Melville, so you can judge whether the grant changes your search.
What It Is Worth Right Now
The headline figure surprises people who last checked years ago: the grant is up to $10,000, paid once per eligible transaction, and it has sat at that level for a long time. What has moved recently is everything around it. For transactions on or after 7 May 2026, the value cap south of the 26th parallel, which includes every Perth suburb, rose to $800,000, up from the $750,000 that applied to transactions on or before 6 May 2026. North of the parallel the cap is $1,000,000.
Two consequences follow. First, if you are reading an older article that quotes the $750,000 cap or a $500,000 duty threshold, it is out of date; both figures changed on 7 May 2026 under the 2026-27 Housing Taxation Package. Second, the grant itself is only part of the money. The first home owner rate of transfer duty, covered below, is a separate scheme with its own thresholds, and for many buyers the duty relief is worth more than the grant. Neither scheme has an income or assets test, which surprises buyers who assume there is one: eligibility turns on property type, value, residency history and where you live, not on what you earn.
Who Qualifies
The eligibility rules are set out on the RevenueWA grant page, and they are mechanical rather than judgement-based: you either meet each test or you do not. The core conditions are:
Age and applicant structure
Citizenship or residency
A genuine first home
A new or substantially renovated home
The value cap
The residency commitment
The application deadline
Which Properties It Covers
The fastest way to check your own position is a two-column read: what the grant covers and what it does not. The value caps below apply south of the 26th parallel, which takes in all of Perth:
| Property situation | Grant eligible? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| New home, bought or built, valued up to $800,000 | Yes, up to $10,000 | The core eligible transaction under the grant rules |
| Substantially renovated home | Yes | The renovation must be substantial, not cosmetic; check the definition before contracting |
| Established home, any price | No | Excluded for contracts dated on or after 3 October 2015 |
| New home valued $800,001 to $1,000,000, south of the parallel | No | The $1,000,000 cap applies only north of the 26th parallel |
| Vacant land | No for the grant | Land qualifies for the separate duty concession instead, up to its own threshold |
| Off-the-plan purchase completing later | Depends | Eligibility is tested against the rules applying when the transaction completes |
That last row matters more than it looks, because eligibility is assessed on the transaction, not on your intentions at the display village. If your contract dates, completion dates or property value shift, recheck the rules before you rely on the money.
Why The Rule Bites Here
The grant cap is a statewide number, but property values are not distributed statewide, and the gap between the two decides whether the grant changes anything for an Applecross buyer. Four local realities shape that:
Entry prices clear the cap easily
Applecross sits 7.4 kilometres from the Perth CBD, holds the top SEIFA advantage decile and posts a median household income of about $2,453 a week, the ninetieth percentile in the state. Suburbs with that profile do not produce much stock under $800,000, and no figure on the public record here suggests otherwise, so buyers should assume most established local homes are outside the grant's reach and verify each listing's value against the cap individually.
New stock is where the eligible homes are
Building activity is genuinely strong: 1,454 dwelling approvals over the last five years, 796 of them in 2021-22 alone, placing the suburb in the ninety-eighth percentile statewide. Renewal on that scale is exactly where grant-eligible new and substantially renovated homes come from, so a buyer hunting for the $10,000 should start with recent approvals and off-the-plan releases rather than with the established market.
The gap between eligible and desirable is real
Only about sixteen per cent of local dwellings are flats or apartments, against roughly sixty-two per cent separate houses, so the new stock that clears the cap tends to be smaller, denser and closer to main roads than the streets buyers picture when they choose this suburb. A first home buyer here is usually choosing between a cap-compliant apartment near the river and a longer commute, and both are legitimate answers.
What that means for your search
Run the search in two lanes. Lane one is grant-eligible new stock under $800,000, where the grant and the duty concession stack. Lane two is established stock above the cap, which gets no grant but still qualifies for the first home owner rate of duty. Knowing which lane a listing belongs to before you inspect saves weeks, and our first home buyer lending page covers how the financing differs between them.
How It Stacks With Duty Relief
This is the part most first timers get wrong, and it is where real money sits. The grant and the duty concession are separate schemes with separate figures, and since 7 May 2026 they are no longer linked, which produces some genuinely useful combinations:
New home under $600,000
New home $600,001 to $800,000
Established home up to $800,000
Vacant land
Over the grant cap
Two schemes, two sets of numbers
How it works
How To Apply And When Money Arrives
The application itself is administrative, but the timing decisions around it are not, and buyers who leave lodgement to the last month routinely create settlement stress that was avoidable. The sequence runs:
- 1
Choose your lodgement route
You can lodge online directly with RevenueWA or through an approved agent, which in practice usually means your lender. Lodging through the lender suits buyers whose deposit depends on the grant arriving, because the payment can be applied within the settlement flow rather than chased separately.
- 2
Gather the evidence early
Applications need identity documents, evidence of citizenship or permanent residency for at least one applicant, the contract of sale or building contract, and, where relevant, evidence of the renovation's substance. If any applicant has previously owned property anywhere in Australia, dig out those records now, because prior ownership is checked against state records, not against your memory.
- 3
Watch the two clocks
Two separate twelve-month limits run in parallel and they are not the same clock. The residency requirement must start within twelve months of completion, and the application itself must be lodged within twelve months of the completion date. Diary both dates the week your contract goes unconditional, because missing either one is fatal to the payment.
- 4
When the money actually lands
The sourced government pages do not publish fixed payment timeframes by purchase type, and it would be misleading to invent one. What RevenueWA states is that the grant is paid once the eligible transaction completes, so a purchase settles with the grant applied, and a construction file draws it against completion of the build. If your deposit arithmetic depends on the grant, our construction lending page explains how staged progress payments interact with that timing.
Worth knowing early
What Gets An Application Knocked Back
Most declined applications are not fraud cases; they are ordinary buyers who assumed the wrong rule. RevenueWA's own guidance points to a short list of avoidable errors:
- Expecting the grant on an established home This is the single most common disappointment. Established homes have been excluded since October 2015, and no purchase price changes that.
- Contracting over the cap South of the 26th parallel the $800,000 cap is tested on total property value, so a contract at $815,000 forfeits the entire payment, not the excess.
- Falling short on residency Not living in the home for six continuous months, or starting occupation later than twelve months after completion, triggers repayment of the grant.
- A hidden ownership history A prior grant in any Australian jurisdiction, property owned before 1 July 2000, or property owned and occupied for six or more months after 1 July 2004 disqualifies an applicant, and co-buyers contaminate the whole application.
- Missing the lodgement deadline Twelve months from completion sounds generous until settlement chaos eats it, so lodge through your lender at documentation stage.
- Conflating the two schemes The grant cap and the duty thresholds are different figures in different schemes, and buyers who treat them as one regularly overstate what they are entitled to.
Where a tight deposit is the reason you are chasing the grant in the first place, it is worth reading our page on guarantor and low deposit options, because a family guarantee is sometimes a cheaper answer than reshaping a purchase around a $10,000 payment.
Where we work
Areas We Service
Alongside Applecross, Your Mortgage Broker Applecross works with first home buyers across the City of Melville, including Mount Pleasant, Ardross and Alfred Cove, where the same cap arithmetic applies but the eligible stock differs street by street. If you are weighing the grant against established suburbs, the about page sets out who you would be dealing with and how the business is paid.
Questions answered
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is the WA First Home Owner Grant worth?
It is a one-off payment of up to $10,000, or the purchase price if that is lower, for an eligible new or substantially renovated home. Two co-buyers on one eligible transaction share the single grant.
Can I get the grant on an established home?
No. Contracts dated on or after 3 October 2015 for established homes are not eligible. An established home can still qualify for the separate first home owner rate of transfer duty relief.
What is the property price cap for the grant?
South of the 26th parallel, including all of Perth, the cap is $800,000 for transactions on or after 7 May 2026. North of the parallel it is $1,000,000.
Do I have to live in the property to keep the grant?
Yes. You must occupy the home as your principal place of residence for at least six continuous months, starting within twelve months of the transaction completing, or the grant can be clawed back.
Is the grant different from stamp duty relief?
Yes, they are separate schemes with different thresholds. The grant covers new homes only and caps at $800,000, while the first home owner duty rate covers established homes and vacant land with its own figures.
How long does the grant take to arrive?
RevenueWA does not publish fixed payment dates. The grant is paid once your eligible transaction completes, so most buyers lodge through their lender and receive it at or shortly after settlement.
Mortgage broker for Applecross and the suburbs around it
Get In Touch
If you want the grant and duty arithmetic run against a real purchase before you sign anything, talk to Your Mortgage Broker Applecross. Call (08) 6311 4005 for a no-cost first conversation, or review our published process and fee structure before you commit to anything.