WA first home buyers
WA First Home Owner Grant
The Western Australian First Home Owner Grant is a one-off payment from the state government, worth up to $10,000, paid to eligible first home owners who buy or build a new home, or a substantially renovated one, in Western Australia.
Your Mortgage Broker Floreat serves Floreat and the surrounding western suburbs, and this page covers the current grant terms, who qualifies, which properties it covers, how it interacts with transfer duty relief, and what the rules mean for a buyer searching locally rather than statewide.
What It Is Worth Right Now
The grant pays a maximum of $10,000, as a single payment, or the full consideration paid if the purchase price is lower. The surprising part for most buyers is how narrow the target is: since contracts dated on or after 3 October 2015, the payment applies only to new or substantially renovated homes, not established dwellings at any price. Most first buyers shopping in the established western suburbs market will therefore never see the grant itself, but can still access a separate, and often larger, saving through the first home owner rate of duty. Both schemes sit under the same RevenueWA administration, and both changed in May 2026.
Who Qualifies
Eligibility is set by RevenueWA, and each condition below must be met by at least one applicant on the transaction:
Age and applicant type
Citizenship or residency
New or substantially renovated property
The residency requirement
No previous grant or qualifying ownership
No means test
The application deadline
Which Properties It Covers
The grant and the duty relief are separate schemes with different coverage, and the table below sets out where each one lands:
| Property type | First Home Owner Grant | First home owner rate of duty |
|---|---|---|
| Established home, any price | Not eligible | Available: no duty up to $600,000, reduced duty to $800,000 |
| New home up to $600,000 | Eligible, up to $10,000 | No duty payable |
| New home $600,001 to $800,000 | Eligible, under the cap | Reduced duty at $16.15 per $100 over $600,000 |
| Vacant land up to $450,000 | Not eligible directly, but a build on it can be | No duty payable |
| Vacant land $450,001 to $550,000 | Not eligible directly, but a build on it can be | Reduced duty at $20.14 per $100 over $450,000 |
The duty figures come from the First home owner rate of duty fact sheet, and the distinction between the two schemes is where most of the confusion, and most of the money, sits.
Why The Rule Bites Here
Floreat sits squarely south of the 26th parallel, so the $800,000 cap applies to every transaction in the suburb, and the shape of local housing stock makes that cap bite harder than it does elsewhere in Perth. Four realities shape the search:
The Cap and Floreat
Floreat is dominated by established, separate-house stock on generous blocks, exactly the property type the grant excludes. The suburb is also affluent, sitting in the highest SEIFA advantage decile, which pushes typical prices well above what a capped grant transaction would need. Buyers wanting the payment usually cannot buy here.
Where New Stock Sits
Dwelling approvals in Floreat over the last five years total 280, modest for a suburb of 2,846 dwellings, and most activity is replacement housing rather than new apartment stock. That means genuinely grant-eligible new properties inside the suburb are scarce at any given time.
Eligible Versus Desirable
Where new stock does appear, it tends to be apartments or townhouses rather than the family-scale homes most buyers picture, since separate houses make up almost ninety per cent of local dwellings. The gap between what qualifies for the grant and what buyers actually want is wide here.
Rethinking The Search
The practical consequence is a two-track search: established homes in Floreat for lifestyle, with duty relief doing the heavy lifting, or new builds and substantially renovated homes in nearby suburbs where the $800,000 cap and the grant both remain live options.
How It Stacks With Duty Relief
This is where the May 2026 changes matter most, and the interaction surprises nearly everyone:
Two schemes, one eligibility check
No duty up to $600,000
The reduced band above it
Vacant land gets its own thresholds
The cap link is gone
Old figures are wrong figures
How it works
How To Apply And When Money Arrives
The application itself is straightforward, but the timing rules around it are strict, and each step has a fixed place in the sequence:
- 1
Lodge Through RevenueWA
Applications go to RevenueWA directly online, or through an approved agent, which in practice usually means your lender lodges the claim as part of settlement. Either route requires the same supporting documents proving identity, the contract, and eligibility.
- 2
The Completion Date Clock
The twelve-month application window runs from the completion date of the eligible transaction, not from the contract date. For a build, completion means the finished home, so buyers planning ahead should diarise the deadline off the expected practical completion, with margin.
- 3
Occupancy Comes First
The grant is conditional on the six-month continuous occupancy requirement starting within twelve months of completion, so the claim is not fully safe until you have lived in the home as required. Plan the move-in before you commit to the contract.
- 4
Payment After Completion
The sourced RevenueWA pages do not publish payment timeframes by purchase type, so no dates can be promised here. What is stated is that payment follows completion of the eligible transaction, whether the claim went through RevenueWA directly or through your lender.
Worth knowing early
What Gets An Application Knocked Back
RevenueWA's published knock-back reasons are predictable, which makes every one of them avoidable with a little contract-stage care:
- Buying an established home The most common disappointment. A renovated, repainted or freshly kitted-out established dwelling is not a substantially renovated home, and the payment is not payable on it at any price point.
- Crossing the cap A contract south of the 26th parallel over $800,000 fails the value test. Buyers bidding in Floreat's established market should assume the cap applies and plan around the duty concession instead.
- Breaking the occupancy rule Not living in the home for six continuous months, or starting the occupancy later than twelve months after completion, forfeits the entitlement. Renting the property out first, even briefly, is a classic mistake.
- Prior ownership or a prior grant Any applicant who has held a grant in any Australian jurisdiction, owned property before 1 July 2000, or owned and occupied a home for six months or more after 1 July 2004 disqualifies the whole transaction.
- Missing the deadline The claim must be lodged within twelve months of completion, and there is no provision for lateness in the published rules, so the date should be diarised at settlement, not remembered later.
- Confusing the two schemes Assuming the grant cap and the duty thresholds are one and the same, with one set of figures, leads buyers to abandon claims they were actually entitled to, or to expect payments that were never on the table.
Where we work
Areas We Service
Your Mortgage Broker Floreat works with buyers and owners across Floreat and the surrounding western suburbs, including Wembley Downs, Churchlands, Wembley, Jolimont, Shenton Park and Mount Claremont, where the same grant and duty rules apply but the eligible stock looks very different street by street.
Questions answered
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is the WA First Home Owner Grant worth?
Up to $10,000 as a one-off payment, or the purchase consideration if that is less. It applies to a new or substantially renovated home in Western Australia, subject to eligibility and the value cap.
Can I get the grant on an established home?
No. Contracts for established homes dated on or after 3 October 2015 are not eligible. You can buy or build a new home, or buy a substantially renovated one, but an established dwelling attracts no grant at any price.
What is the property price cap for the grant?
For transactions on or after 7 May 2026, south of the 26th parallel including all of Perth, the cap is $800,000. North of the parallel it is $1,000,000. Contracts dated earlier used a $750,000 southern cap.
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 a continuous period of at least six months, starting within twelve months of completion. Missing the occupancy requirement forfeits the grant.
Is the grant different from stamp duty relief?
Yes, they are separate schemes. The grant applies only to new homes. The first home owner rate of duty also covers established homes and vacant land, with no duty on homes valued up to $600,000 for transactions on or after 7 May 2026.
How long does the grant take to arrive?
The sourced RevenueWA pages do not publish payment timeframes, so no date can be promised. Payment is made once the eligible transaction completes, and applications can be lodged online or through an approved agent such as your lender.
Mortgage broker for Floreat 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 position worked out for your actual numbers, call (08) 6311 4000. As a broker operating under a licensee's Australian Credit Licence, with published process and fee disclosures, Your Mortgage Broker Floreat can map the whole first-buyer pathway, and our About page sets out exactly who handles your file and how we are paid.