Four Numbers First Home Buyers Should Run Before the Spring Listings Land
- Written by: Anish Puri, founder of NestPath
Rates are on hold, listings are about to surge, and the thresholds that decide what help a first home buyer gets have moved. Here is the maths to do before you fall for a listing.
Spring is when Australian property wakes up. Listings climb through September and October, open homes get crowded, and buyers who spent winter researching suddenly find themselves bidding against each other. It is also the season when first home buyers make their most expensive mistakes, because falling in love with a listing is easy and doing the maths afterwards is painful.
This spring arrives with a twist. The cash rate sits at 4.35 per cent after three rises earlier in the year, and the Reserve Bank has held it there through winter while leaving the door open to going higher. Borrowing power is thinner than it was a year ago, and the price caps and thresholds that decide what help a first home buyer gets have shifted in several states. Before you book a single inspection, run these four numbers.
THE FOUR NUMBERS AT A GLANCE
|
Your assessment rate |
The advertised rate plus APRA’s 3 point buffer, close to 9% right now |
|
Your duty cliff |
Full first home buyer exemptions end at $800k NSW, $700k QLD, $600k WA and VIC; no cap in the ACT from 1 July 2026 |
|
Your scheme cap |
5% deposit, no LMI, no income caps since 1 October 2025, but only under your city’s price cap |
|
Your deposit timeline |
In parts of Sydney a 20% house deposit target grows faster than $2,000 a month in savings |
1. Your real borrowing power, not the bank ad version
Lenders do not assess you at the advertised rate. They add a serviceability buffer of 3 percentage points on top, a rule set by the banking regulator APRA. With variable rates for new owner occupiers sitting around 6 per cent, that means being assessed at close to 9 per cent. A couple who could borrow comfortably on paper a year ago can find their ceiling tens of thousands of dollars lower today. Work out the number lenders will actually use before you set your price range, not after.
2. The stamp duty cliff in your state
First home buyer duty concessions are delivered as thresholds, and the cliffs are sharp. In New South Wales a first home buyer pays nothing up to $800,000. In Queensland the full exemption runs to $700,000, and in Western Australia to $600,000. Victoria is the sharpest: nothing at $600,000, then the concession shrinks until it disappears entirely at $750,000, where the buyer pays the full standard duty of about $40,000. The ACT went the other way and abolished conveyance duty for eligible first home buyers from 1 July 2026, with no price cap at all.
The practical point: a home $20,000 over your state threshold can cost you far more than $20,000 once the duty change is counted. Know where the cliff sits before you inspect anything near it.
3. What the 5 per cent deposit scheme really does to your target
Since 1 October 2025 the federal deposit guarantee has had no income caps and no place limits, so most first home buyers can now purchase with a 5 per cent deposit and no lenders mortgage insurance, provided the home is under the price cap for their city. That is real help. But it comes with a catch the brochures do not mention. Our analysis of Cotality market data found that in the six months after the change, values under the scheme price caps rose 6.7 per cent nationally, against 3.6 per cent for values above them. In 81 of 88 markets, the homes the scheme covers rose faster than the ones it does not. The scheme gets you in sooner. It also means the homes it covers are getting dearer, faster.
4. A deposit target that moves while you save
The most sobering number we have published comes from New South Wales sales records. We modelled a household saving $2,000 a month toward a 20 per cent deposit in five Greater Western Sydney suburbs, letting the target grow at each suburb’s own price growth rather than holding it still. For the median unit, the deposit was reachable everywhere, in between 4.6 and 8.2 years. For the median house, in four of the five suburbs it was never reachable at all, because the target grew faster than the savings did. If your plan says house, the honest questions are which suburb, which dwelling type, and whether a unit first is the step that actually gets you there.
The maths is free
None of this needs a spreadsheet or a sales pitch. Every calculator mentioned here, borrowing power, stamp duty by state, deposit tracking and loan repayments, is free with no sign up at nestpath.com.au/tools, and the grants and concessions for every state are explained in plain English at nestpath.com.au/grants. Run your four numbers before the spring crowds arrive. The buyers who know their ceiling, their cliff, their cap and their timeline are the ones who bid calmly in October.
About the author. Anish Puri is the founder of NestPath (nestpath.com.au), a free Australian education platform for first home buyers, publishing calculators, state by state grant guides and original housing affordability research. NestPath is an information service, not a lender, broker or financial adviser. Contact: hello@nestpath.com.au
