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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →The Australian Government's Help to Buy scheme began its first full financial year on Wednesday 1 July with 10,000 new places and slightly higher income limits. Housing Australia, which runs the scheme, announced the changes in a media release reported the same day by Broker Daily and Smart Property Investment.
The release also carried the first detailed count of who has used the scheme since it opened on 5 December 2025. More than 7,200 applications have been received, and 4,800 applicants have either settled on a home or found one. Demand has been strongest in Victoria, then New South Wales, with Queensland third.
Housing Australia media release on the 1 July 2026 expansion of Help to Buy, as reported by Broker Daily and Smart Property Investment on 1 July 2026.
What changed on 1 July
Two things moved. The first is the number of places: 10,000 are available for 2026-27, in every state and territory. The scheme's own website describes the allocation as 10,000 places each year, and Housing Australia said at the December launch that the program was sized to support up to 40,000 households over four years.
The second is the income test. A single applicant can now have a taxable income of up to $103,000, up from $100,000. Joint applicants and single parents can earn up to $165,000 between them, up from $160,000. Both of the earlier limits are the ones Housing Australia published at the launch.
The rest of the design is as it was. The Government contributes up to 40 per cent of the purchase price of a new home and up to 30 per cent of an existing one. The buyer needs a deposit of at least 2 per cent. Broker Daily reported that the property price caps were left unchanged on 1 July, and that they range from $400,000 to $1.3 million depending on the location. Housing Australia publishes the cap for each area through a lookup tool rather than a single table, so a Queensland buyer has to check the figure for the place they intend to buy in.
Related readQueensland Budget keeps the $30,000 first home grant for four more yearsWho has used it so far
Housing Australia's figures describe a scheme used mostly by people buying alone. Almost seven in ten applications came from single applicants. Single parents made up 12 per cent of applications. Among the women the scheme has supported, 42 per cent were aged 40 or older, a group Housing Australia linked to the risk of housing insecurity later in life.
First home buyers account for 86 per cent of applicants. The remainder reflects a feature of the rules: Help to Buy is not limited to people who have never owned a home, although applicants cannot own any other property in Australia or overseas, with limited exceptions for single parents.
The median deposit was $30,000. Set against the 2 per cent minimum, that number says something about the people applying. On an $800,000 home the minimum deposit is $16,000, so the typical participant has brought more than the floor requires, but far less than the $160,000 a conventional 20 per cent deposit on the same home would take.
Alia Ayoub, the executive who leads the scheme at Housing Australia, said in the release that "the strong uptake since the Scheme launched highlights both the demand for this type of support and the impact" it is having. Housing Australia did not publish a count for each state, so Queensland's third place is a ranking without a number attached.
How the shared stake works
Help to Buy is shared equity, not a grant and not a guarantee. The Government pays part of the price and owns a matching share of the home. The buyer borrows less, so the repayments are smaller and no lenders mortgage insurance is needed on a small deposit.
Related readFirst-buyer applications down 22.6% in Queensland as rates rise againThe scheme's website gives a worked example. A buyer purchases an existing home for $800,000. The buyer puts in a deposit of $16,000, which is 2 per cent. The Government contributes $240,000, which is 30 per cent. The bank lends the remaining $544,000. The buyer is the owner on the title and lives in the home, but the Government holds 30 per cent of its value.
That last point is what separates shared equity from other help. Because the Government's stake is a percentage, not a fixed sum, it rises and falls with the value of the home. Participants repay it over time, by buying back the share in instalments or in one payment, or when the home is sold. The website lists the obligations that come with the arrangement: keeping the home maintained and insured, living in it as a principal place of residence, and taking part in periodic reviews that ask for insurance certificates and proof of income.
All applicants must be Australian citizens aged 18 or over. That is stricter than some other schemes, which accept permanent residents.
- Check eligibilityThe scheme's online tool tests income, citizenship and property ownership.
- Go to a participating lenderHousing Australia takes no direct applications. The lender assesses the finances and applies.
- Conditional approvalA place is reserved for 90 days once approval is given.
- Find a homeThe property must sit under the price cap for its location.
- SettleThe lender and Housing Australia complete the purchase together with the buyer.
Two lenders, and why that matters in Queensland
A buyer cannot apply to Housing Australia directly. Applications go through a participating lender, and Broker Daily's report notes that only two lenders take part so far: the Commonwealth Bank and Bank Australia. Of the two, Bank Australia is the only one that can be reached through a mortgage broker.
That is the same pair named at the launch in December, when Housing Australia said more lenders were expected to join during 2026. For a buyer in regional Queensland, where a broker is often the usual route to a home loan, the short list narrows the practical choice.
Related readQueensland first-buyer loans slip to 5,646 as their average size jumpsQueensland was in the scheme from the first day. Help to Buy needs each state to pass its own enabling legislation, and Housing Australia recorded in June 2025 that Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales had already done so. When applications opened on 5 December, the scheme covered those three states along with South Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory. Tasmania joined in June 2026.
Queensland buyers now have two shared equity schemes
A Queensland first buyer looking at shared equity has a choice that buyers in most states do not, because the State runs its own scheme, Boost to Buy, alongside the federal one. The two work on the same principle and differ in almost every setting.
| Setting | Help to Buy (federal) | Boost to Buy (Queensland) |
|---|---|---|
| Government share, new home | Up to 40% | Up to 30% |
| Government share, existing home | Up to 30% | Up to 25% |
| Minimum deposit | 2% | 2% |
| Income limit, single | $103,000 | $150,000 |
| Income limit, two adults or single parent | $165,000 | $225,000 |
| Places | 10,000 a year nationally | Up to 2,000 in total |
| Lenders | Commonwealth Bank, Bank Australia | Unity Bank |
Housing Australia and the Help to Buy website for the federal scheme; Queensland Treasury (December 2025) and The Adviser (10 April 2026) for Boost to Buy.
The federal scheme takes a larger share, which means a smaller loan, but it is open to lower incomes only. A single Queenslander earning $120,000 is over the Help to Buy limit and under the Boost to Buy one. The State scheme is much smaller: Queensland Treasury describes $330 million for up to 2,000 buyers, half of the places reserved for homes outside south-east Queensland, and a price limit of $1 million. The Treasurer said on 23 June that more than 100 households had moved into a home through it.
The two cannot simply be stacked. The Help to Buy website says applicants cannot be receiving assistance from other government schemes, and the lender is the one who applies that rule to a buyer's circumstances.
A shared equity stake is repaid as a share of the home's value
Under both schemes the Government's contribution is a percentage of the home, not a loan of a fixed amount. If the home is worth more when the share is bought back or the home is sold, the amount repaid is higher.
The price question in south-east Queensland
Income is one gate and price is the other. Every Help to Buy purchase must sit under the cap for its location, and those caps did not move on 1 July. Housing Australia's figures give no count of purchases by region, so there is no published measure of how many Queensland participants bought in Brisbane and how many bought elsewhere.
Related readThe Queensland First Home Owner Grant: who qualifies and how to claimWhat is public is the level of prices the caps are set against. Aussie, citing Cotality's home value index in an article published on 29 April, put the median Brisbane dwelling at $1,101,151. A buyer limited by a cap below that level is shopping in the lower half of the market: units, townhouses and houses in the outer suburbs and regional centres. That is also where the State's $30,000 First Home Owner Grant applies, since it is limited to new homes valued under $750,000, according to the Queensland Revenue Office.
For Queensland buyers on the incomes Help to Buy is built for, the arithmetic of a 30 or 40 per cent Government share is what makes those homes reachable. On the website's $800,000 example, the loan is $544,000 instead of the $784,000 a buyer with the same 2 per cent deposit would otherwise need to borrow.
What comes next
The 10,000 places for 2026-27 are available now, through the two participating lenders. Three things are worth watching from Queensland.
The first is the lender list. Housing Australia said in December that more lenders would join in 2026, and half the year has passed with two.
The second is state-level data. The 1 July release ranks the states without counting them. A Queensland figure would show whether third place reflects the State's share of the population or something more.
The third is how the federal and State schemes sit together as Boost to Buy releases its remaining places. Housing Australia's chief executive, Scott Langford, said in the release that Help to Buy was making a meaningful difference to people who had been locked out of home ownership. In Queensland, that claim now has a second scheme to be compared with.
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.
