If you are planning on building your home, or have been planning a much needed renovation to your current home, you may be eligible for the government’s ‘HomeBuilder’ scheme.
Introduced earlier this month, the government’s ‘HomeBuilder’ is its latest initiative in economic and job stimulus within the construction industry, as we move into the new financial year. With a homebuilder grant, you could be eligible to a $25,000 cash incentive for the purposes of your new home build or renovations on your existing home.
Eligibility
To be eligible, you must fulfil the following criteria:
you must be an Australian citizen and natural person (i.e you cannot enter into a contract as a company or trust)
you must be building or renovating your primary place of residence, not an investment property;
you must have earnt a maximum of $125,000 as a single, or $200,000 as a couple in the previous financial year;
you must enter into a contract for building or renovation works between 4 June 2020 and 31 December 2020 with commencement of works within three months of contract date; and
total cost of the build must be no more than $750,000, or between $150,000 and $750,000 for renovations on a property with a current value of $1.5 million;
If you are a first home buyer, you may be eligible for a homebuilder grant in conjunction with other existing schemes, such as the first home buyer stamp duty exemption, first home buyer grant for buying or building a new home, and the commonwealth government’s first home buyer’s deposit scheme.
Excluded works
Excluded works include:
works which do not improve the “accessibility, livability and safety” of your home;
works that do not connect to or extend the structure of your current building such as swimming pools, outdoor spas, garages, granny flats and sheds; and
works conducted by any builder or contracted not licensed or registered at the time or prior to when the scheme was announced.
HomeBuilder grant as a deposit?
At this stage, your lender will not factor in your homebuilder grant of $25,000 as deposit funds for your building loan. Please speak to your mortgage broker in relation to all your finance needs.
If you would like to receive further information on how the HomeBuilder scheme could benefit you, please do not hesitate to contact us for a friendly discussion with our dedicated property team.