SA first home buyers
SA First Home Owner Grant
The First Home Owner Grant in South Australia pays eligible first home buyers up to $15,000 towards buying or building a new home, including off-the-plan purchases, house-and-land packages and homes built under a comprehensive building contract. Established homes do not qualify.
This page sets out what the grant pays, who qualifies, which properties count and how it combines with stamp duty relief, using RevenueSA as the source for every figure. Your Mortgage Broker Aldgate works with first home buyers across the Adelaide Hills, and the sections below connect the grant rules to the stock actually available around Aldgate.
What It Is Worth Right Now
The payment is up to $15,000, paid once per eligible transaction, and it has not budged while everything around it has changed. The surprising part is not the amount; it is what was removed. For contracts entered into on or after 6 June 2024, South Australia scrapped the property value cap on the grant entirely, so a new home at any price can qualify where it previously could not. At the same time, the state removed stamp duty for eligible first home buyers of new homes and vacant land at any value, meaning a new-home buyer can receive the payment and pay no duty on the same transaction. Both facts sit on the RevenueSA first home buyer relief page, and both overturn advice in older articles that still quote caps and banded thresholds. If you are reading a source that quotes a price ceiling, check its date before you trust a word of it.
Who Qualifies
Eligibility turns on you, the buyer, rather than the property, and the rules are stricter than most first timers expect. The points below summarise the framework; the RevenueSA grant page holds the full eligibility criteria, and you should read it before signing anything:
Every applicant must qualify
Age and residency rules apply
Previous property ownership matters
You must intend to live there
New homes only
Timing runs off the contract
Which Properties It Covers
The eligible-property list is narrower than most buyers assume, so check your transaction type against the table before you count on the money:
| Transaction type | Grant eligible | Duty relief eligible |
|---|---|---|
| Newly built house, flat, unit, townhouse or apartment, never lived in | Yes | Yes |
| Off-the-plan purchase of a new home | Yes | Yes, for off-the-plan apartments |
| House-and-land package | Yes | Yes |
| Home built under a comprehensive building contract | Yes | Yes |
| Owner-built home | Yes | No |
| Vacant land on which you will build | No | Yes |
| Established home, any condition | No | No |
The pattern is consistent across both schemes: South Australia rewards new housing supply and gives established-home buyers nothing, not the payment and not the duty relief. The full definitions, including what counts as a comprehensive building contract, sit on the RevenueSA grant page and the HomeSeeker SA home buyer support page.
Why The Rule Bites Here
The new-home-only rule does not land evenly across Adelaide Hills suburbs, and Aldgate is the sharpest example of the gap between where buyers want to live and where eligible stock actually sits. This is the local reality:
Almost No Eligible Stock
Aldgate is a suburb of established houses: 99.5 per cent of its 1,192 dwellings are separate houses, and precisely none are flats or apartments, according to the suburb facts data. Almost the entire private market here is established stock, which means almost none of it qualifies for either the payment or the duty relief, however eligible you are as a buyer.
New Supply Exists, But It Is Small
There is a trickle of qualifying stock. Dwelling approvals in Aldgate have run at 202 over the last five years, placing the suburb around the 62nd percentile for building activity in South Australia, and each approval represents a home that could carry the payment for a first time buyer. That is real opportunity, but it is a handful of homes a year competing with established buyers who need no grant at all.
The Eligible Homes Are Not The Postcard Homes
Buyers imagine a Hills cottage under a gum tree, and the scheme will not pay for it. What it will pay for is a house-and-land package, an off-the-plan apartment or a new build under contract, and in Aldgate those tend to sit on infill lots or in small new releases at the suburb's edges, often with different streetscapes and smaller blocks than the established character homes nearby.
What This Means For Your Search
Practically, you are choosing between three paths: chase the handful of new builds and off-the-plan options in Aldgate and its neighbours, look to suburbs with heavier construction pipelines where eligible stock is easier to find, or accept an established home and budget without either scheme. Each path changes what you can afford and how fast you can move, and the honest answer depends on your deposit and income.
How It Stacks With Duty Relief
The grant is only half the package, and the half most buyers underestimate is the duty side. These two schemes stack, but they are separate, and treating them as one thing costs people money:
Two schemes, two tests
No duty at any value
Vacant land counts
Established buyers get neither
Both attach to the same contract
How it works
How To Apply And When Money Arrives
The application process is less work than most buyers fear, because your lender usually does it. The steps below follow RevenueSA's own guidance:
- 1
Your Lender Usually Lodges
In the majority of cases, the bank or lender providing your finance lodges the grant application as an approved agent, handling the paperwork alongside your loan documents. Apply directly with RevenueSA only where your lender does not offer the agency service, which your broker or lender can confirm before settlement.
- 2
Evidence Travels With The Contract
The application rides on your contract of sale and your eligibility declarations, so the accuracy of what you sign matters. Because the payment is made on the basis that the home will become your principal place of residence, misstating your intentions creates a clawback risk rather than a harmless shortcut.
- 3
Payment Follows Completion
RevenueSA pays the grant once the eligible transaction completes, and it does not publish a fixed turnaround time by purchase type on its accessible pages. For a house-and-land package or a construction contract, that means the payment arrives at the end of the process, not the start, so do not plan your deposit around money that has not landed.
- 4
Check Before You Sign, Not After
The single best timing decision available is a RevenueSA eligibility check before you exchange contracts, because eligibility runs off the contract date and cannot be fixed afterwards. Reading the criteria takes ten minutes; discovering ineligibility after settlement is not recoverable.
Worth knowing early
What Gets An Application Knocked Back
RevenueSA's own guidance points to a handful of recurring failures, and every one of them is avoidable with a contract read before signing. The common knock-backs:
- Buying established and expecting something The most common disappointment in South Australia is an established-home purchase where the buyer assumed the payment or the duty relief would apply. Neither does, at any price point, in any condition.
- Trusting outdated caps Articles written before 6 June 2024 quote value caps and banded duty thresholds that no longer apply to new contracts, leading some buyers to rule out homes that now qualify.
- No genuine intent to occupy The payment depends on the home becoming your principal place of residence, so a plan to rent it out from day one fails the test and can trigger repayment obligations.
- Assuming the lender lodged Some buyers rely on the lender to handle the application and later discover it was never submitted, because the application deadline runs within the period RevenueSA allows after completion and a missed window is gone.
Where we work
Areas We Service
Your Mortgage Broker Aldgate supports first home buyers across the Adelaide Hills, and the same grant rules and lender panel apply in every suburb we cover, with local differences driven by stock and price rather than the scheme itself. We work regularly in Stirling, Bridgewater, Mylor, Heathfield and Upper Sturt, and we can talk through how the new-home rule plays out in each one.
Questions answered
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is the SA First Home Owner Grant worth?
Up to $15,000, paid as a one-off payment for an eligible new home. It is a single payment per eligible transaction, not a per-buyer amount, and it applies on top of any stamp duty relief you separately qualify for.
Can I get the grant on an established home?
No. The grant covers new homes only: a house, flat, unit, townhouse or apartment that has never been lived in, an off-the-plan purchase, a house-and-land package or an owner-builder project.
What is the property price cap for the grant?
There is no value cap for contracts entered into on or after 6 June 2024. The former cap was removed, so an eligible new home at any price can qualify, provided you meet the other eligibility rules.
Do I have to live in the property to keep the grant?
Yes. The home must become your principal place of residence for the period RevenueSA requires. If you never move in, or rent it out instead, RevenueSA can claw the grant back.
Is the grant different from stamp duty relief?
Yes, they are two separate schemes with separate applications. The grant pays you $15,000; the first home buyer duty relief removes stamp duty on eligible new homes and vacant land at any value.
How long does the grant take to arrive?
In most cases your lender lodges the application as an approved agent, and RevenueSA pays the grant once the eligible transaction completes. RevenueSA does not publish a fixed processing timeframe, so confirm timing with your lender.
Mortgage broker for Aldgate and the suburbs around it
Get In Touch
If you are weighing a house-and-land package against an established Aldgate home and want the grant and duty maths done properly before you commit, talk to Your Mortgage Broker Aldgate. You will deal directly with a qualified broker under an Australian Credit Licence, with the process, costs and lender options set out in plain terms. Call (08) 8451 3906 for a conversation about your first home, or read more about the business on the About page. You can also see how the finance side fits together on our first home buyer loans, construction loans and guarantor and low deposit pages.