First home buyers
New Expanded Home Guarantee Scheme: Unlimited Places & Higher Property Caps from 1 October 2025
8 September 2025
Housing Australia welcomes the Australian Government’s expansion of the Home Guarantee Scheme, effective 1 October 2025. The changes include removing place and income caps and increasing property price limits giving more first-home buyers the opportunity to enter the housing market sooner.
Key Changes (from 1 October 2025)
Unlimited places: All eligible first-home buyers with at least a 5% deposit can apply—no annual or number-of-places limit.
No income caps: Eligibility is no longer restricted by income thresholds.
Higher property price caps: The property value limit has increased across jurisdictions to better reflect rising home prices.
Simplified regional access: The Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee will be merged into the broader First Home Guarantee, streamlining access for regional applicants.
Property Price Cap Table (Effective 1 October 2025)
| Location | Current Cap | New Cap (from 1 Oct 2025) |
|---|---|---|
| QLD – capital city & regional centres | $700,000 | $1,000,000 |
| QLD – other | $550,000 | $700,000 |
How to Apply
Check eligibility: A new Eligibility Tool will be available on the Housing Australia website from 1 October 2025.
Verify your region’s cap: Use the property price cap table or postcode search tool to identify your applicable limit.
Reach out to a Participating Lender: You’ll need to apply via one of the 30+ participating lenders across Australia.
Background & Context
The Home Guarantee Scheme is administered by Housing Australia and enables eligible buyers to purchase a home with as little as a 5% deposit—without having to pay Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI). The Government provides a guarantee to the lender to cover a portion of the loan.
NHFICHome Loan Experts
As of 1 July 2025, the Scheme included 50,000 new places across its three components—the First Home Guarantee, Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee, and Family Home Guarantee.
Housing Australia
Jacob Keenan from LINK Advance predicts the following.
A large percentage of First Home Buyers that weren’t eligible due to being priced out of the market are now eligible to access financing to secure their first home and get onto the property ladder.
With the surge in property prices over the past couple of years has seen several younger people get priced out of the market or had limited options to get access to their first property purchase.
The expansion of the scheme is an optimistic move that will provide graduates and people in the workforce hope to access their first property purchase sooner than they would have thought before the changes to the scheme.