first home buyer victoria: grants, stamp duty and the section 32

buying your first home in victoria: the short version

i'm Nicola, and when i started actually mapping out a first home purchase, victoria turned out to have one of the busier sets of rules in the country. there's a state grant, a stamp duty break, a very specific disclosure document called the section 32, and a cooling-off period that behaves differently here than you might expect. it sounds like a lot. it isn't, once someone lays it out in order.

here's the honest version of how the money side stacks up. there are two things victoria controls itself: the first home owner grant, and stamp duty (officially called land transfer duty here). then there are three federal schemes that apply in victoria the same as everywhere else, just with their own victorian price caps. you don't have to understand all five today. you just need to know which ones you may qualify for, and where to check the real, current numbers.

the one rule i'd burn into your brain: every figure on this page changes. grant amounts, price caps and duty thresholds get adjusted, sometimes in the annual state budget. so i've deliberately not pinned a current dollar amount to most of this. treat it as a "check the current rules" starting point and follow the government link on each scheme below. for the personal side of it, my dad, John Kefalianos, is a mortgage broker, and the thing he says most often is that buyers leave money on the table simply because nobody walked them through what they were entitled to. so let's walk through it.

the vic first home owner grant: how much, the cap and who may qualify

the victorian first home owner grant (often shortened to FHOG) is a one-off payment from the state government to eligible first home buyers. the key thing to understand about victoria's version is that it's generally aimed at new homes, building a new home, or buying one that's never been lived in, rather than established properties. that's a real point of difference from some other states, so if you've got your eye on an older place, check whether the grant applies to your situation before you count on it.

i'm not going to quote a dollar figure, because the amount and the rules get reviewed and can change. what i can tell you is how it tends to work: it's a fixed grant amount, the property has to be under a value cap, and you (and usually any co-buyer) need to be a genuine first home buyer who'll live in the home for a set period, not an investor. there can also be extra or boosted amounts for certain regional purchases, which is worth asking about if you're buying outside melbourne.

who may qualify, in plain terms: first home buyers buying or building a brand-new home in victoria, under the value cap, who'll move in and live there. who usually doesn't: people buying an established home, investors, or anyone who's owned property in australia before. the only source i'd trust for the live numbers is the state revenue office of victoria, linked in the scheme box below. apply through the SRO or, commonly, through your lender at settlement.

stamp duty exemption and concession for victorian first home buyers

stamp duty (land transfer duty) is usually the biggest upfront cost after your deposit, so this is the one i'd make sure you understand. victoria gives first home buyers a break on it: a full exemption up to one price point, and a sliding-scale concession (a partial discount) up to a higher price point. above that upper threshold, you generally pay the standard duty.

so the practical question is just: where does the home you want sit against those two thresholds? under the lower one, you may pay no duty at all. between the two, you may pay a reduced amount that tapers as the price climbs. over the top one, no first home buyer break. those thresholds are exactly the kind of figure that gets reviewed, so check the current numbers with the state revenue office of victoria rather than trusting a number you saw on a forum.

a couple of honest pointers. the home generally has to be your home (you live in it), and the duty break is usually for established or new homes alike, which is different from the grant. there can also be separate concessions for things like off-the-plan purchases or for pensioners, so it's worth a five-minute look at the SRO duty page or a quick chat with the team at Finance Lab to see which combination fits your purchase. small price differences right around a threshold can swing your costs by a lot, so this is genuinely worth getting right before you make an offer.

what a section 32 (vendor statement) covers in vic, and why first home buyers read it closely

this is the victorian thing that catches a lot of first home buyers off guard, because it doesn't exist in the same form in every state. the section 32, also called the vendor statement, is a document the seller must give you before you sign the contract. its whole job is disclosure: it tells you the important legal and financial facts about the property up front, so you're not signing blind.

what it covers is the stuff that can quietly cost you money or change your plans. things like the title and any restrictions on it, mortgages or charges over the property, rates and outgoings, easements and covenants (rights other people or services have over the land), zoning and planning, owners corporation (body corporate) details and fees if it's an apartment or unit, and any notices affecting the property. for a first home buyer, that owners corporation section and the rates and outgoings section are where i'd slow right down, because they're ongoing costs that don't show up in the sticker price.

here's what i'd do: don't skim it, and don't read it alone. a conveyancer or solicitor reads section 32s for a living and will flag the things that should make you pause, an easement running through where you wanted to build, a special owners corporation levy coming up, a planning overlay. it usually costs a few hundred dollars to have one reviewed, and it's the cheapest insurance you'll buy in the whole process. read it before you're emotionally locked into the place, not after.

the cooling-off period in victoria: your 3 business days

victoria gives you a cooling-off period of 3 business days after you sign a contract of sale for a private-sale (not auction) residential property. it's your built-in second chance: if you change your mind in that window, you can pull out of the contract, with one catch i'll explain in a second.

first, the big exceptions, because this is where people get tripped up. cooling off generally does not apply if you buy at auction, or within 3 clear business days before or after a publicly advertised auction. it also doesn't apply in some other situations, like buying from an estate agent you're related to, or buying a property used for industrial or commercial purposes. so if your dream is to bid at a saturday auction, understand going in that there's no cooling-off safety net, you're committed once the hammer falls.

the catch on a normal private sale: if you do cool off and withdraw, there's usually a penalty, often a small percentage of the purchase price or a set minimum amount, kept by the seller. it's not free, but it's far cheaper than being stuck in a purchase that's wrong for you. my honest take: use the cooling-off period as the time to get your finance formally confirmed and your section 32 properly reviewed, not as a casual "maybe". treat it as the window to confirm a yes, not to go shopping for a better house.

vic price thresholds for the federal first home guarantee (and where fhss and help to buy fit)

on top of victoria's own grant and duty break, there are three federal schemes that work right across the country, including victoria, each with its own victorian price caps. these are the ones that can get you in with a smaller deposit, so they're worth understanding even if the state stuff doesn't apply to you.

the first home guarantee is the headline one. it lets eligible first home buyers buy with a smaller deposit while the government guarantees part of the loan, which can mean avoiding lenders mortgage insurance (LMI). the part that matters for victoria: there are property price caps, and they're set higher for melbourne and regional centres than for the rest of the state, because prices differ so much. check the current victorian caps and eligibility on the housing australia website before you assume a property qualifies.

the first home super saver scheme (FHSS) is different, it's a way to save your deposit inside your super, where the tax treatment can help your money grow a bit faster, then withdraw it for your first home. and help to buy is a shared-equity scheme, where the government takes a share of the property to lower what you need to borrow, also with victorian price caps and income limits. these can sometimes be combined with the state grant or duty concession, but the interactions get fiddly, so this is exactly where i'd get the team at Finance Lab to map your specific situation rather than guessing. for the deep mechanics of each, see the deposit and grants pillar.

buying in melbourne: where a smaller deposit still works

melbourne is a big, spread-out city, and the price gap between the inner suburbs and the outer growth corridors is huge. that's actually good news for a first home buyer, because it means there are still genuine entry points if you're flexible on location and home type.

i won't quote suburb prices, because they move, but here's the shape of it. the more affordable pockets tend to be in the outer west and north (think the growth corridors out past the airport and toward melton and wyndham), parts of the outer southeast and toward melbourne's fringe, and a lot of the regional centres within commuting or lifestyle distance, geelong, ballarat, bendigo. units and townhouses in middle-ring suburbs can also land well under the price caps where a freestanding house wouldn't. the trade-off is usually space, travel time, or both, and only you can weigh that.

when you're picking an area, line it up against three things at once: the first home buyer stamp duty thresholds (so you stay in the exemption or concession band), the first home guarantee price cap for melbourne, and whether new builds in the area open up the state grant. a suburb that ticks all three can quietly save you tens of thousands. for the local long-tail, i keep a running view of affordable suburbs melbourne for first home buyers, and the canonical episodes where we walk specific areas are linked from the resources page. don't anchor on where you wish you could buy, anchor on where the numbers actually let you start, then upgrade later.

watch: where the genuine entry points still are across melbourne.

what to do next as a victorian first home buyer

if you've read this far, you've already done more homework than most. here's the order i'd actually do things in, so it doesn't all feel like one giant pile.

first, get your real numbers. work out your deposit, your borrowing capacity and your true upfront costs (deposit plus duty minus any exemption plus conveyancing and inspections). the cost of buying pillar and the deposit and grants pillar on this site walk through both. second, confirm which schemes you may qualify for, the victorian FHOG, the stamp duty break, and the federal first home guarantee, FHSS or help to buy, and check the live figures on the government sources linked in the boxes below. third, get finance sorted before you fall in love with a place, so cooling off becomes a confirmation step, not a panic.

then, when you're actually looking: read every section 32 properly (or have a conveyancer read it), know whether you're buying private sale or at auction so you know if cooling off applies, and keep your target suburbs inside the thresholds that unlock the help. if any of this feels like too much to hold in your head, that's normal, it's a lot of moving parts. you can book a chat with the team at Finance Lab and have them map your exact victorian situation, or grab my first home buyer checklist from the resources page and work through it at your own pace. you don't have to get it all right today. you just have to start in the right order.

hear it on the showbuying your first home in melbourneplay ›

hear it on the showbreaking down the first home guarantee schemeplay ›

hear it on the showunderstanding how home grants work!play ›

hear it on the showwhat you need to know about cooling off periods when buying propertyplay ›

also by location: affordable suburbs in Melbourne · first home buyer Western Australia · first home buyer Queensland · first home buyer South Australia · first home buyer New South Wales

general information only, not personal financial advice. Finance Lab, Credit Representative Number 425945, authorised under Australian Credit Licence Number 389328. scheme, grant and cost figures are explanatory only, change regularly, and were last reviewed june 2026. always confirm current rules with the relevant government source.