NSW first home buyers
NSW First Home Owner Grant
The NSW First Home Owner Grant is a one-off payment of $10,000 from the NSW Government to eligible first home buyers who buy or build a new home, an off-the-plan home, or a substantially renovated home that has never been lived in or sold since the renovation.
Your Mortgage Broker Caddens(https://g.page/) helps Caddens buyers work out whether a particular property qualifies before the contract is signed. This page covers what the grant pays, who qualifies, which properties it covers, how it interacts with stamp duty relief, and how to apply.
What It Is Worth Right Now
The grant pays a flat $10,000, one-off per transaction, and it is once per applicant per lifetime. If you have been reading older articles or third-party sites that quote a $30,000 payment, that figure has not applied for years and cannot be verified against any current government source. The confirmed amount is $10,000, and the 2026-27 NSW Budget, handed down on 23 June 2026, made no changes to the grant amount or the value caps. Treat any page quoting a different figure as out of date and check it against Revenue NSW before you plan around it.
Who Qualifies
Eligibility turns on the buyers as much as the property, so check every point below against Revenue NSW before you commit to a purchase:
First ownership test
Natural persons only
Citizenship requirement
Age and applicant status
Occupancy undertaking
Property type test
Which Properties It Covers
The value caps depend entirely on how the purchase is structured, and the difference between the two caps changes what is worth looking at:
| Purchase structure | Eligible property | Value cap |
|---|---|---|
| Home and land under one contract | New, off-the-plan or substantially renovated, never lived in or sold | $600,000 |
| Vacant land plus a separate building contract | New build on land you buy separately | $750,000 combined |
| Established home, any price | Previously lived in or sold | Not eligible for the grant |
Source: Revenue NSW, First Home Owner Grant. A contract price marginally over a cap disqualifies the whole application rather than reducing it, so there is no partial outcome to negotiate.
Why The Rule Bites Here
The grant's caps matter more in some suburbs than others, and Caddens sits in an interesting position. Here is what the local numbers mean for a first home buyer chasing the grant:
The median and the cap
Caddens is overwhelmingly a house suburb: 87.8 per cent of dwellings are separate houses and only 0.3 per cent are flats, with 75.5 per cent of homes carrying four or more bedrooms. House-and-land stock at or under the $600,000 cap under a single contract is therefore scarce here. The realistic grant-eligible paths in this postcode are vacant land with a separate building contract, where the combined cap stretches to $750,000, or off-the-plan product wherever it is released.
Where eligible stock actually sits
The building pipeline tells you where to look. Caddens recorded 1,318 dwelling approvals in the past five years and sits in the ninety-seventh percentile for building activity within New South Wales, against only 112 approvals in 2021-22. That concentration of recent and current construction is exactly where new, never-lived-in homes come from, so new releases and recent completions in and around Caddens are the places grant-eligible property actually exists.
The gap between eligible and desirable
Here is the friction. The housing stock that suits many households in this suburb, three and four bedroom family homes close to the things they moved here for, will often clear the caps, and the moment an established home is lived in, the grant is gone regardless of price. The median household here earns around $2,592 a week and sustains a median mortgage repayment of about $2,817 a month, which says buyers in this postcode are stretching into stock well above the grant's reach.
What it means for your search
Practically, a Caddens buyer chasing the grant should search in this order: house-and-land packages where the combined land-and-build value sits under $750,000, off-the-plan apartments or townhouses under $600,000 on a single contract, and substantially renovated stock that has never been sold. If an established family home in Caddens is the goal, plan around stamp duty relief instead, which we cover below, rather than organising your budget around a grant that will never arrive.
How It Stacks With Duty Relief
The grant is only half the assistance on the table. The First Home Buyers Assistance Scheme is a separate scheme with its own rules, and the two interact in ways that change which property is the better deal:
They are separate schemes
Full duty exemption up to $800,000
A sliding concession to $1,000,000
Vacant land has its own bands
They can stack on one purchase
Established homes get relief only
How it works
How To Apply And When Money Arrives
The application runs through your lender or directly to Revenue NSW, and timing depends on where the purchase sits in the build process. Work through the stages in order:
- 1
Lodgement route
Applications are lodged through an approved bank or lender acting as an agent for Revenue NSW, or directly to Revenue NSW where no approved agent is involved. In practice most buyers lodge through their home lender, which is one more reason the lender choice matters beyond the loan itself. Get the paperwork assembled before settlement week, not during it.
- 2
Homes already built
For a new home that is built and ready to occupy, the grant is generally paid at settlement. That makes it usable as part of your funds on settlement day, provided your lender knows at application time that the grant is coming and structures the figures accordingly. Tell the lender early so nothing is assumed.
- 3
Off-the-plan purchases
For off-the-plan contracts the grant is paid at settlement, which can sit well beyond the contract date depending on developer completion. You will be waiting, possibly for years, and your deposit plan needs to work without the grant in the meantime. Budget as though it arrives late.
- 4
Construction contracts
Under a construction contract the grant is typically paid once the first progress payment is made to the builder, not at the start and not at the end. That timing affects your cash flow through the build, so sequence your deposits and progress payments with it in mind. Our construction loans page covers how progress payment lending works in detail.
Worth knowing early
What Gets An Application Knocked Back
Revenue NSW publishes the common failure reasons, and nearly all of them are avoidable at the contract stage rather than the lodgement stage. Check this list before you sign anything:
- Wrong property type Assuming any first home purchase qualifies rather than checking the new-home test is the most common error. Established homes never qualify, at any price.
- Missing the occupancy window Not moving in within 12 months, or moving out before 12 months of continuous residence, forfeits the grant.
- Prior ownership anywhere Previous ownership or co-ownership by an applicant or their partner, anywhere in Australia, even briefly or interstate, disqualifies the application.
- Wrong applicant structure Applying as a company or trust rather than as a natural person fails the test outright.
- Just over the cap A contract price marginally over the $600,000 or $750,000 cap disqualifies the whole application. It does not reduce the grant.
- Incomplete documents Identity, contract and citizenship evidence must be complete at lodgement, and gaps delay or sink the application.
Where we work
Areas We Service
First home buyers across the Penrith local government area get the same help, not just those in Caddens itself. If you are looking in Kingswood, Claremont Meadows or Orchard Hills, the same grant rules apply and the eligible-stock picture differs suburb by suburb, particularly where new releases are concerned. For the broader first home buyer conversation, start with our first home buyer loans page or read about us on the About page.
Questions answered
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is the NSW First Home Owner Grant worth?
The grant pays a one-off $10,000 to eligible first home buyers purchasing or building a new home in NSW. The 2026-27 NSW Budget made no changes to the amount.
Can I get the grant on an established home?
No. Established homes that have been lived in or sold before are not eligible at any price. The home must be new, off-the-plan, or substantially renovated and never lived in since.
What is the property price cap for the grant?
For a home and land under one contract the cap is $600,000. For vacant land with a separate building contract, the combined value cap is $750,000.
Do I have to live in the property to keep the grant?
Yes. For contracts from 1 July 2023 you must move in within 12 months of settlement or completion and live there continuously as your main residence for at least 12 months.
Is the grant different from stamp duty relief?
Yes, they are separate schemes. The grant applies to new homes only, while the duty assistance scheme covers new and established homes, with a full exemption up to $800,000.
How long does the grant take to arrive?
For a ready home it is generally paid at settlement. Under a construction contract it is typically paid once the first progress payment is made to the builder.
Mortgage broker for Caddens and the suburbs around it
Get In Touch
If you are weighing a grant-eligible purchase against an established home in Caddens, the lending structure and the grant timing need to be worked out together. Your Mortgage Broker Caddens can walk through both schemes against the specific property you are looking at before you commit. Call [TRACKING_PHONE], where Your Mortgage Broker Caddens works under Australian Credit Licence 389328, and the first conversation costs nothing.