First-Home Buying Guide: Your Complete Australian Roadmap

In Australia, buying your first home is shaped by two layers of rules at once: national lending standards and federal schemes on one side, and state or territory law -- contracts, cooling-off, stamp duty, grants -- on the other. Where you buy decides more of the process than most first-time buyers expect. This guide walks through it in the order you'll actually meet it, and points to Navaroa's deposit and government support guide for the schemes themselves. It's general information, not financial, legal or lending advice: a mortgage broker and a licensed conveyancer or solicitor in your state are the people to confirm your own position.

1. Borrowing power: what a lender will actually test

A bank doesn't assess you at today's interest rate. APRA, the national banking regulator, expects lenders to check you could still meet repayments at a rate at least 3 percentage points above the one you'd be charged -- the serviceability buffer it has kept in place through its recent reviews. That buffer, not the advertised rate, is usually what caps your borrowing.

Two practical consequences:

• Get conditional pre-approval before you bid. It tells you a realistic ceiling and lets you act quickly, which matters most at auction, where there's no finance condition to fall back on.
• Under a 20% deposit, expect Lenders Mortgage Insurance unless you use the First Home Guarantee, which removes it for eligible buyers with as little as 5% down. The deposit guide covers the Guarantee and the First Home Super Saver Scheme in full.

2. Federal help versus state help

Federal schemes change how you fund the deposit. State and territory rules change what the purchase itself costs, and they're where the biggest differences between markets sit:

• Stamp (transfer) duty concessions or exemptions for first-home buyers below a price threshold. Thresholds, tapers and new-home rules differ in every state and change over time.
• A First Home Owner Grant in some states, generally for a newly built home rather than an established one -- in NSW, for example, it's officially the First Home Owner (New Homes) Grant.

Both are administered by your state or territory's revenue office -- the State Revenue Office in Victoria, the Queensland Revenue Office, Revenue NSW, and the equivalent office elsewhere. Check theirs directly before you set a budget; a figure from another state can be badly wrong.

3. Choosing a property, and what to check before you commit

The same budget buys something very different from one capital to the next, so if you're flexible on location, Navaroa's state and territory guides are a useful starting point. Two checks matter most once you're looking at a specific property:

• A building and pest inspection -- for a private sale, arrange it before you sign, or make the contract conditional on it.
• The strata records, for an apartment or townhouse. Strata law is state-based and the names differ -- an owners corporation in Victoria, a body corporate in Queensland -- but the questions are the same: the levies, how much is in the capital works or sinking fund, any special levies coming, and the by-laws you'd be agreeing to live under.

Finding a Place to Rent or Buy in Australia covers inspections, private treaty and auctions in more depth.

4. Signing a contract: cooling-off depends entirely on your state

Engage your conveyancer before you sign anything, because what happens next is set by state law. A few examples of how far the rules diverge for a private sale of a home:

• NSW: a 5 business day cooling-off period runs from exchange of contracts; pulling out costs 0.25% of the price.
• Victoria: 3 clear business days, and withdrawing costs $100 or 0.2% of the price, whichever is greater.
• Queensland: 5 business days from receiving the contract signed by both parties, with up to 0.25% deducted if you terminate.
• Western Australia: no mandatory cooling-off at all -- a signed Offer and Acceptance becomes a binding contract once the seller accepts, unless you negotiate conditions into it.

None of these protect you at auction: a winning bid is unconditional. That's why finance pre-approval and your inspection have to be done before auction day, not after.

5. From exchange to settlement

Between signing and settlement, your lender moves from conditional to formal approval, any finance or inspection conditions fall away, and your conveyancer handles searches, adjustments for rates and levies, and the settlement itself. The date is whatever the contract says, so check it lines up with your lease or current home.

Arrange building insurance for the moment the property becomes your risk -- and in Queensland that's early: in most cases you're responsible from 5pm the next business day after the contract date, well before settlement. Elsewhere it typically follows the contract and settlement terms, so ask your conveyancer when risk passes. Navaroa's home and contents insurance guide and the insurance task cover what to arrange.

6. Moving into a home you own

Once settlement is booked, the move becomes the main job: get a removalist range from Navaroa's moving cost calculator, line up electricity and internet so they're live on day one, and work through who to tell about your new address. If you're buying in another state, add vehicle registration to the list -- see the interstate moving guide. For all of it in date order, answer a few questions on the Navaroa homepage to get a personalised plan built around your settlement date.

7. Buying on a temporary visa

If you're not an Australian citizen or permanent resident, the rules are now much tighter: from 1 April 2025 to 30 June 2029, foreign investors -- including temporary residents -- are generally prohibited from buying established homes, with only limited exceptions. Buying a new dwelling or vacant land can still be possible, but it requires foreign investment approval before you sign, so check your position on that page first.