Help for Aboriginal people to buy a home

Are you an Aboriginal person in NSW wanting to buy your own home? There are grants and schemes available to help you. Some grants are specifically for tenants in social housing.

Indigenous Business Australia

Indigenous Business Australia (IBA) offers low-deposit, low-interest housing loans to help Aboriginal people buy:

• an established residential property, or
• an established residential property and upgrade, or
• land and build a new home.

IBA has lower deposit requirements and interest rates than commercial home lenders. Depending on your income, you can get a home loan with a deposit as low as $1,500. Go to www.iba.gov.au/home-ownership for more information.

IBA also offers regular face-to-face and virtual workshops to help you prepare for owning a home. This includes workshops on the IBA home loan application process, budgeting and understanding credit. You can register for a workshop on their website at www.iba.gov.au

Aboriginal Housing Office (AHO)

The AHO provides a number of grants to help Aboriginal people buy a home. A grant is money that you don’t have to pay back.

Deadly Deposit Grant

A financial grant that matches your existing deposit savings on a dollar for dollar basis, up to a maximum grant of $10,000. It can be offered to 20 Aboriginal people per year.

You may be eligible for the grant if you are an Aboriginal person who has saved at least $1,000 towards your deposit and are in the process of building or buying a residential property.

Go to https://www.aho.nsw.gov.au/aho-deadly-deposit-grant for more information.

Tenancy Plus Grant

A financial grant that matches your existing deposit, this grant is for eligible long-term AHO tenants and has a higher rate of co-contribution (than the Deadly Deposit Grant). The grant is up to a maximum of $10,000 and can be offered to 20 Aboriginal people per year.

If you are an AHO tenant who has at least five years of strong tenancy history, you have saved $1,000 towards your deposit and are in the process of buying a residential property, you may be eligible for this grant.

Go to https://www.aho.nsw.gov.au/aho-tenancy-plus-grant for more information.

Home Buyer Booster Grant

A financial grant to help with home ownership expenses such as legal and administrative costs. The maximum available is $2,500 and the grant can be offered to a maximum of 100 Aboriginal people per year.

You may be eligible for this grant if you are an Aboriginal person, you are a social housing tenant or private tenant and you have saved at least $1,000 towards a deposit.

Go to www.aho.nsw.gov.au/home-buyer-booster-grant for more information.

You can email questions to the AHO Home Ownership team at homeownership@aho.nsw.gov.au or visit the website at www.aho.nsw.gov.au to find out more.

Revenue NSW

Transfer Duty (also known as Stamp Duty) can be a large part of the costs of buying a home. Some people do not need to pay Transfer Duty when they buy their home.

First Home Buyers Assistance Scheme

If you’re a first home buyer, you may be eligible for a full or partial exemption of Transfer Duty under this scheme. This means you could pay no Transfer Duty or less Transfer Duty.

Go to http://www.revenue.nsw.gov.au/grants-schemes/first-home-buyer for more information.

Transfer Duty exemption for social housing tenants

Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) and AHO tenants are exempt from Transfer Duty if they are purchasing a property that they will use as their principal place of residence under section 278 of the Duties Act 1997 (NSW), subject to eligibility criteria. This means you could pay no Transfer Duty.

First Home Owner (New Homes) Grant

You may be eligible for a $10,000 First Home Owner Grant when you buy or build your first new home. The First Home Owner Grant is only available to purchase newly built or substantially renovated homes. Other eligibility criteria apply.

Go to www.revenue.nsw.gov.au/grants-schemes/first-home-buyer/new-homes for more information.

Federal Government assistance

Saving a home loan deposit can be difficult. If you don’t have a 20% deposit, you usually have to pay for expensive Lenders Mortgage Insurance that protects the lender, not you. The Federal Government has introduced a scheme to help people avoid Lenders Mortgage Insurance.

The First Home Guarantee helps first home buyers to buy their first home sooner. The scheme can help you to buy a home with as little as 5% deposit without paying Lenders Mortgage Insurance.

The Family Home Guarantee helps single parents to buy a home with a minimum 2% deposit.

Go to www.housingaustralia.gov.au for more information and eligibility criteria.

NSW Government assistance

The Shared Equity Home Buyer Helper is a program where the NSW Government contributes between 30-40% of the purchase price of your home and owns a share in the home. Because your loan is smaller, this reduces your mortgage payments. This program is for key workers, lower income single parents and single people aged 50 years and over.

You don’t have to make repayments to the government for what they paid towards buying the home and you don’t pay them interest. You can make voluntary repayments to the government when you can afford to.

This program means you could buy a home with a very low deposit and still avoid Loan Mortgage Insurance. Go to www.nsw.gov.au for more information and criteria.

Sources:

Disclaimer:

The information provided in this article has been collated by DCJ from external resources. You should contact the relevant organisation for more information and otherwise make and rely upon your own enquiries.

First Nations of Australia:

As Aboriginal people are the original inhabitants of NSW this document refers only to Aboriginal people. Any reference by DCJ to a product or service available to Aboriginal people is a reference to a product or service available to Torres Strait Islander people, who are among the First Nations of Australia.