In short
The Australian Government is helping more people buy a home or access affordable rental properties.
Help for home buyers
Launching the Help to Buy scheme
The Help to Buy shared equity scheme will help 40,000 Australian households buy a new or existing home. The scheme involves an equity contribution from the government.
This means eligible Australians can buy a home with a smaller deposit and mortgage.
The Australian Government is working with the states and territories to deliver the scheme.
Housing Australia will administer the Help to Buy scheme.
Implementing the Home Guarantee Scheme
The Home Guarantee Scheme supports Australians to buy a home sooner.
The scheme includes the:
- First Home Guarantee which supports eligible first home buyers to buy their first home sooner, with a deposit as little as 5%
- Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee which supports eligible regional first home buyers to buy a home in a regional area
- Family Home Guarantee which supports eligible single parents with at least one dependent child, to buy a home with a deposit as little as 2%.
Helping first home buyers save for a deposit
The First Home Super Saver Scheme helps people boost their savings for a first home by building their deposit inside the superannuation system.
The scheme allows people to make voluntary contributions to superannuation of $15,000 per year, up to a total cap of $50,000.
They can then access these contributions and associated earnings to buy their first home.
Help for renters
Encouraging more build‑to‑rent housing
The Australian Government introduced tax incentives to encourage more investment in new build-to-rent developments. To help boost supply in the private rental market, incentives for investors include:
- reducing the final withholding tax rate to 15% for eligible fund payments (rental income and capital gains) made by managed investment trusts to foreign investors
- increasing the capital works deduction. Owners can claim a 4% deduction for capital works on eligible build-to-rent developments.
To help boost the supply of affordable dwellings and strengthen outcomes for tenants, the government also introduced affordability standards for eligible build-to-rent developments.
- At least 10% of dwellings must be available as affordable dwellings.
- At least 20% of the affordable dwellings must be available to be tenanted by lower-income earners at no more than 30% of household income or 74.9% of market rent – whichever is less.
- The remaining affordable dwellings must be available to be tenanted by moderate-income earners at no more than 74.9% of market rent.
- Build-to-rent operators must engage a community housing provider to assist with tenanting the affordable dwellings.
- Build-to-rent operators must offer up to a 12-month transitional period to support renters if they become ineligible for an affordable dwelling.
Lowering application fees for foreign investors
The Australian Government is also encouraging foreign investors to buy new and established build-to-rent developments by lowering their application fees.
Increasing rent assistance
Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) is a non-taxable income supplement for eligible people who rent in the private rental market or community housing.
Pensioners, allowance recipients and those receiving more than the base rate of Family Tax Benefit Part A may be eligible for CRA.
The Australian Government increased CRA maximum rates by 15% in 2023, and by a further 10% in 2024.
Strengthening renters’ rights
In August 2023, National Cabinet agreed to A Better Deal for Renters to harmonise and strengthen renters’ rights across Australia. This includes:
- developing a nationally consistent policy requiring landlords to have genuine, reasonable grounds for eviction
- moving towards capping rent increases to once a year
- brining in minimum rental standards.