Your first home buyer journey, in 8 honest steps.

Work out what you can really afford

Before you look at a single house, you need to know your honest borrowing power, not the bank’s biggest number. What a lender will offer you and what you can comfortably repay without giving up everything else in your life are often tens of thousands of dollars apart. The gap between those numbers is where most first home buyers get caught.

Three things change your borrowing power more than anything else: existing debts (HECS especially), how many credit card limits you have open, and your monthly living expenses on your bank statements for the last 3 months. Cancel any credit cards you don’t use. Lenders assess the full limit as if you had drawn every dollar of it, even if the card sits in a drawer.

Get pre-approved with a broker

Pre-approval is a lender’s conditional green light: they would lend you up to a certain amount, subject to final checks on you and the property. It lasts 3 to 6 months. Without it, real estate agents won’t take your offer seriously, and bidding at auction becomes a gamble.

You can go directly to a bank, or use a mortgage broker. A broker compares loans across their whole lender panel at no cost to you (they’re paid by the lender). For first home buyers especially, a broker often finds more borrowing power than a single bank because different lenders treat your income and expenses differently. They also know which lenders accept the 5% Deposit Scheme, casual income, recent job changes, and self-employment.

Save your deposit (you might not need 20%)

You do not need 20%. The Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme (until recently called the First Home Guarantee) lets eligible first home buyers in with 5%, and you skip Lender’s Mortgage Insurance (LMI) entirely because the government guarantees part of the loan. That saving can run well into five figures. Since October 2025 there are no income caps and no limit on places.

On a $700,000 purchase, that’s a deposit of $35,000 instead of $140,000. The trade-off: you borrow more (so your repayments are higher), but you stop saving toward a target that keeps moving with prices. For most first home buyers in 2026, in is in.

You can also use the First Home Super Saver Scheme (FHSS) to save voluntary super contributions for your deposit at a lower tax rate, up to $50,000 in total, with at most $15,000 counted from any one financial year. The higher your tax rate, the more it saves you.

House hunt with a real checklist

Most first home buyers spend a couple of months or more actively looking, and walk through more open homes than they can keep straight. By property 5, every kitchen looks the same. The buyers who don’t overpay are the ones with a checklist.

What to actually check at every inspection: cracking and signs of movement (your Step 6 inspector makes the structural call), rising damp around skirtings, the age of the roof, the smell (mould), water pressure, mobile reception, neighbour noise on a weekday evening, the flood zone, the school catchment if you have kids planned. Open the meter box. Open the kitchen sink cupboard. Open the toilet cistern. Take photos.

Make an offer or bid at auction

In the big auction markets, Sydney and Melbourne especially, a large share of homes sell under the hammer. Everywhere else, private treaty (negotiated offers) dominates. The rules and tactics are different for each.

Private treaty: You submit an offer in writing to the agent. The agent takes it to the vendor. Negotiation usually happens through the agent, sometimes with counter-offers. You can include conditions (subject to finance, subject to building & pest inspection). Most states give you a cooling-off period after exchange.

Auction: You register before the auction, you bid against other registered bidders, the highest bid wins if it’s above the vendor’s reserve. If you win, you sign the contract on the spot and pay a deposit (usually 10%). No cooling-off period and no conditions, your building & pest inspection and finance must already be done.

Building & pest inspection, conveyancing, contract

The building and pest inspection is a non-negotiable. A qualified inspector goes through the inside, the subfloor and the roof space, looking for structural issues, termite activity, rising damp, and the red flags you cannot spot at an open home. Most reports come back within a day or two, with photos.

Your conveyancer (or solicitor in some states) handles the legal transfer of ownership. They review the contract, check the title, organise stamp duty payment, coordinate with the bank, and manage settlement. Most first home buyers pay $1,500 to $2,500 all up, with the cheapest published schedules under $1,000. In Queensland you’ll generally use a property solicitor, and anywhere else bring one in if something is legally unusual (deceased estate, off-the-plan complexities).

Settlement day

Settlement is the day the title officially transfers from the seller to you, and the bank releases the loan to the seller’s account. It happens behind the scenes, your conveyancer and the bank do the work. You don’t physically attend.

In the days before settlement (your contract sets exactly when), you do the final inspection. Walk through with your conveyancer’s checklist: are the inclusions still there (dishwasher, blinds, fixed items in the contract)? Are all the rooms in the same condition? If anything is missing or damaged, this is your last chance to flag it.

On settlement day, your bank transfers the loan amount, your conveyancer pays stamp duty and final adjustments (rates, water, strata), and the title is registered. Once it’s done, the agent calls and tells you it’s settled. You go pick up the keys.

Move in & set up your new home

The legal side is done. Now you switch utilities (electricity, gas, internet), redirect mail, change your address with Medicare, the ATO, your employer, your bank. There’s a 30-day grace period on most things, but the longer you leave it the more painful it gets.

Day-one essentials: a working internet connection, a fridge, a bed, a kettle, and somewhere to sit. Everything else can wait. The first week in your own home is the best week, don’t spend it stressed about furniture.