Queensland’s first-home-owners’ grant to double from Monday

Queensland’s first-home-owners’ grant will be doubled from Monday, in a direct incentive to young Queenslanders to buy or build new homes.

The expanded grant – which will also cover deposits on units, townhouses and granny flats – will be funded by extra state revenue from increased coal royalties, Treasurer Cameron Dick said.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced in Springfield on Sunday that the existing $15,000 grant would rise to $30,000 until mid-2025.

“This is a great pre-Christmas bonus,” she said.

“I’d say to people out there trying to get into the market, please go and have a look.

“You can use this cash to secure your first home.

The increase in the first home-owners’ grant applies to new dwellings up to the value of $750,000.Credit: Nine News

“You can also use it for a unit, a townhouse and – if your parents want to put a granny flat out the back – you can use it for that as well.”

The grant applies to Queenslanders wanting to buy or build a new home to the value of $750,000, including the land.

Dick said the extra coal royalty payments enabled the grant to be increased.

“Coal cash is coming back into Queensland, and we are using the high price of coal to put prices down on new first homes for Queenslanders,” he said.

The move comes after Opposition Leader David Crisafulli last month targeted home ownership as an election issue in Queensland.

Crisafulli pointed out that home-ownership rates were falling among young Queenslanders, although there was a slight rise overall.

He identified that Queensland’s home-ownership rates were the lowest of any state, and said the opposition would review the first home-owner grant scheme closer to the October 2024 state election.

The 2021 census showed Queensland’s overall home-ownership rate rose slightly between 2016 and 2021, from 62.2 per cent to 63.5 per cent.

However, Queenslanders aged between 25 and 29 were less likely in 2021 (35 per cent) than five decades earlier (53 per cent in 1971) to own their home.

This was attributed to a range of factors, including education, career choice, cost of living and cultural reasons.

In an earlier statement on Sunday, Palaszczuk said she understood how cost-of-living increases were affecting home ownership in the state.

“I want to see home-ownership rates continue to rise, which is why our government is stepping up to lend a helping hand,” she said.

The Queensland government included $1.6 billion in new cost-of-living concessions in the 2023-24 budget.

In the past three years, $365 million has been paid in first home-owner grants for 24,000 homes in Queensland.

But in September 2022, the Productivity Commission recommended state governments phase out – or better target – first home-owner schemes, saying they contributed to rising home prices.

“It is not typically home buyers who benefit from the assistance, it is the sellers who receive a higher sale price,” it said.

“What this means is that assisting home buyers can [somewhat counter-intuitively] make housing less affordable, particularly for people who do not qualify for assistance.”

Deputy Opposition Leader Jarrod Bleijie said on Sunday the grant increase was a “step in the right direction” in harsh housing-market circumstances created by the Labor government.

“It is only because the Labor government has created the housing crisis that they are having to double the first home-owners’ grant today.

The government estimates it will help about 4000 new home owners each year – not enough to contribute to inflation.

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