20,125 Queensland first buyers used the 5% Deposit Scheme in a year

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In the twelve months since the Australian Government removed the income limits and place limits from its 5% Deposit Scheme, 20,125 first home buyers in Queensland have bought with it. The figure comes from a state-by-state table in a media release issued on 1 October 2026 by the Minister for Housing, Clare O'Neil, marking the first anniversary of the expanded scheme. Nationally the count is 102,594.

Queensland ranks third, behind Victoria and New South Wales, and accounts for just under a fifth of the national total. The release arrived two days after the Reserve Bank's fourth rate rise of the year, and by 6 October the mortgage trade press was setting the milestone beside a harder fact: a small deposit gets a buyer to the lender's door, but it does not decide how much the lender will offer.

Media release, Minister for Housing, "Helping 100,000 first home buyers into a home of their own", 1 October 2026.

Queensland's share of the first year

The release gives two columns for each state and territory: the number of people supported in the past year, and the number supported since the present federal government took office in 2022. For Queensland those are 20,125 and 61,675. Almost a third of all the Queenslanders helped in four years, 32.6 per cent, came through in the single year since the scheme was widened.

Victoria recorded 33,413 buyers in the year and New South Wales 28,158. Together with Queensland the three eastern states account for 81,696 of the 102,594, or 79.6 per cent. Queensland's own share of the year is 19.6 per cent.

Over the longer period Queensland's weight is a little greater. Its 61,675 participants since 2022 compare with 89,375 in Victoria and 76,285 in New South Wales, and make up about 22 per cent of the eight state and territory figures added together. In other words Queensland took a slightly smaller slice of the expanded scheme's first year than it had of the scheme before the expansion.

The release does not explain why, and the table alone cannot. Two things are known from other sources. Queensland's price cap for Brisbane, at $1,000,000, is lower than Sydney's, and the state's first-buyer mortgage applications have fallen faster than any other state's in each month from May to August, according to Equifax figures reported by Savings.com.au and Smart Property Investment.

What changed on 1 October 2025

The scheme began in 2020 as a capped program, with a set number of places each year and an income test. From 1 October 2025 it was reshaped and renamed. The First Home Buyers website summarises the present version in three phrases: no income caps, no waitlists and no lenders mortgage insurance.

A first home buyer needs a deposit of at least 5 per cent of the purchase price. A single parent or single legal guardian needs 2 per cent. The buyer borrows the rest from a participating lender, and the Commonwealth guarantees the part of the loan that a lender would otherwise require mortgage insurance to cover. The buyer applies through the lender as part of the home loan application, not to Housing Australia, and the website lists more than 30 authorised lenders.

Price caps remained, at higher levels. In Queensland the cap is $1,000,000 for the capital city and regional centres, which the website names as the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast, and $700,000 for the rest of the state.

The website warns that both the purchase price and the value the lender assigns to the home must be at or under the cap, and that once approved a buyer has 90 days to find a property.

The savings and the repayment record

The Government's case for the scheme rests on what buyers avoid paying. The release says buyers have saved $2.5 billion in lenders mortgage insurance since 2022, of which $1.4 billion was saved in the past year. For a buyer purchasing at the national median price with a 5 per cent deposit, it estimates the insurance avoided at about $23,700.

Mortgage insurance protects the lender, not the borrower, and is normally charged when a deposit is under 20 per cent. On a 5 per cent deposit the premium is at its highest, which is why the saving is so large for the buyers the scheme is aimed at. It is usually added to the loan, so avoiding it lowers both the debt and the interest paid on it.

The release also reports on how the borrowers are faring. It says 99 per cent are ahead of or on track with their repayments, that 13 claims have been paid under the guarantee since the scheme began, and that borrowers remain on the scheme for an average of 2.5 years. It adds that about half of all first home buyers nationally now use a first home buyer scheme. Ms O'Neil said in the release that more than 100,000 first home buyers had used the expanded scheme in a single year to get the keys to a first home.

The First Home Buyers website gives a longer count, of more than 320,000 Australians helped since the scheme commenced in 2020. The Minister's figure of more than 280,000 starts from 2022. The two are counted from different dates and are consistent with each other.

The limit that a deposit does not move

Trade coverage of the anniversary has been less celebratory than the release. Broker Daily, reporting on 6 October under a headline about buyers hitting a wall, noted that first home buyer mortgage demand nationally was 20.1 per cent lower in August than a year earlier, and that the four interest rate rises of 2026 have reduced borrowing capacity by approximately $90,000.

Sarah Smelt of the brokerage Finance Society told the publication: "The 5 per cent Deposit Scheme can solve the deposit problem, but it doesn't solve the borrowing capacity problem."

The distinction matters more in Queensland than the anniversary figures suggest. A buyer at the Brisbane cap with a 5 per cent deposit needs a loan of $950,000. A buyer at the regional cap needs $665,000. Lenders assess whether the borrower could meet repayments at a rate above the one being charged, and with the cash rate now at 4.60 per cent that test is harder to pass than it was a year ago, when the expanded scheme opened. The scheme's rules are as generous as they were on day one. The loans they lead to are harder to qualify for.

Real Estate Business, also on 6 October, gathered the views of buyers who had used the scheme and found them divided. Some were glad to be paying off their own home instead of a landlord's. Others regretted the timing, having seen similar homes sell for less since, or spoke of the strain of repayments with little margin for illness or a lost job.

The scheme has critics in the Parliament too. The New England Times reported on 2 October that the Australian Greens described the expansion as reckless, arguing that it encouraged workers on lower incomes to take large loans near a market peak and exposed them to the risk of owing more than the home is worth. The Government's reply is in its own numbers: 99 per cent of borrowers on track and 13 claims paid.

Reading the Queensland number

A count of 20,125 over a year is roughly 1,680 Queensland buyers a month. It is a count of people, as the release describes it, and a couple buying together may be counted as two, so it cannot be laid directly against loan statistics. The Australian Bureau of Statistics, which counts loans, recorded 5,646 first home buyer loan commitments in Queensland in the June quarter of 2026.

What the two series agree on is scale: the scheme is no longer a niche product in this state. The release's own estimate is that half of first buyers nationally use a government scheme, and a program that had supported about 41,550 Queenslanders between 2022 and the expansion has added 20,125 in the single year since.

The year also divides unevenly. Equifax data reported through 2026 shows first home buyer demand peaking in December 2025 and falling in each month from May, with Queensland's annual decline reaching 25.2 per cent in July and 22.6 per cent in August. Much of the first-year total is therefore likely to have been written in the early months, though the release does not break the year down by month.

Where the scheme sits among the others

For a Queensland first buyer the 5% Deposit Scheme is the broadest of the forms of help on offer, because it has no income test and no limit on places. It can be combined with the State's assistance that reduces costs: the first home transfer duty concessions administered by the Queensland Revenue Office, and the First Home Owner Grant of $30,000 on a new home valued at less than $750,000.

It cannot be combined with the shared equity schemes. Queensland Treasury's Boost to Buy rules exclude anyone receiving a Commonwealth home-buyer guarantee, and the federal Help to Buy scheme excludes other guarantees and shared equity arrangements. Those schemes address the problem the deposit scheme leaves alone, by reducing the size of the loan, but they are income tested and limited in number.

The next federal figures on the scheme will show whether the pace of the first year has held through a spring in which the cash rate has risen again and first-buyer applications have been running a fifth below last year's.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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