Where first home buyers have been getting into the market this year

Melbourne dominates uptake of the federal government’s Help to Buy shared equity home buyer scheme, with the city making up the top six regions for approvals across the country – and not a single area in the top 10 is in Sydney.

Of about 4800 households approved for the scheme by the end of June since its launch in December 2025, almost a third were based in Melbourne, data from Housing Australia reveals.

The scheme allows lower-income buyers with a minimum 2 per cent deposit to access a government contribution of up to 40 per cent of the purchase price for new builds, and 30 per cent for established homes, for an equivalent share of the home’s equity.

Melbourne’s west topped the list, followed by the south-east, inner city, north-east, north-west and outer-east. The next most popular region for uptake was Ipswich, in the outer south-west of Greater Brisbane, followed by neighbouring Logan – Beaudesert.

Housing Australia statistics show the average Help to Buy participant took out a loan of $425,000 and paid a deposit of $31,000. Just over half (51 per cent) were under 35, and most (56 per cent) were single applicants. The maximum purchase price in the scheme is $1.3 million in Sydney, $950,000 in Melbourne, $1 million in Brisbane and $850,000 in Perth.

While buyers in Sydney can theoretically purchase up to $1.3 million under the scheme – almost $200,000 less than Sydney’s median house value, according to Cotality – banks are unlikely to lend them enough to purchase at that level on a 2 per cent deposit and an income of $100,000, even with the government’s equity contribution.

Matthew Bowes, senior associate at the Grattan Institute’s Economic Prosperity and Democracy Program, said Melbourne was probably overrepresented in uptake of the scheme because it was already an example of how to tackle housing affordability – increasing supply through reducing barriers to approvals and building.

Melbourne has one of the lowest median dwelling values of all capital cities at about $787,000, Cotality data revealed on Tuesday, after only Darwin and Hobart.

Bowes suggested that for many of the people the scheme was targeted to help – those on lower incomes, particularly singles – homes in Sydney weren’t affordable, and recipients were already likely to be priced out regardless of additional support.

“Ultimately, the Help to Buy Scheme isn’t a long-term solution to the housing affordability challenges that Australians face,” Bowes said. “[It was positioned] very specifically as being something that was supporting those people who were most in need of tenure security, but who couldn’t get it through existing schemes.

Housing minister Clare O’Neil, said Help to Buy had “supported more than 6000 low and middle-income Australians into their first home, cutting years off the time it takes to save for a deposit while vastly reducing the size of the mortgage they’ve taken on”.

Her spokesperson added: “The scheme is designed to help low- and middle-income Australians purchase homes where they live or want to live – not just to support home ownership in the most expensive suburbs.”

IT consultant Joel Colangelo is one of the first home buyers in Melbourne using the scheme.

The 26-year-old had started saving, but realised his deposit wouldn’t reach the heights he had hoped.

“I didn’t want to go for an apartment, but with the way things are right now, that’s all I could get with my income,” he said.

While he could access the Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme, which allows first home buyers to get a loan with a minimum 5 per cent deposit without paying lenders mortgage insurance, his borrowing power meant he could likely only afford somewhere he would live in for five or so years before looking to upsize.

After renting, he wanted a longer-term plan. His broker recommended looking into the federal government’s Help to Buy scheme.

Colangelo bought a townhouse in Ringwood, in Melbourne’s east, after getting approved for the scheme through Bank Australia. He will move in with his partner.

“It’s just a nice two-bedder with a little backyard,” he said. “Somewhere I can see myself for maybe 10 to 15 years.”

Bank Australia is the only lender that allows borrowers to access the scheme through a broker.

The bank’s chief customer officer, Steve Odgers, said it had settled close to 1000 loans through the scheme, “with around half coming from brokers”.

Commonwealth Bank, the other lender at launch, only allows customers access Help to Buy directly through the bank, and the four mutual banks that joined the scheme in July will introduce a broker channel from October 6.

Colangelo’s broker, Loan Market Rowville’s Natalie Weeks said allowing brokers access to the scheme was integral.

“For a lot of first home buyers I work with, they’re very new to everything, and they’re really relying on their broker to help guide and educate them through the process,” she said.

Greg Johnson, chief customer officer at Teacher’s Mutual Bank – which works alongside Health Professionals Bank, UniBank and Firefighters Mutual Bank – said they had their first enquiries about the scheme within hours of the four banks’ participation being announced in July, and were “expecting a high volume of applications when [it] becomes available through our broker network in October”.

The housing minister’s spokesperson said greater participation by lenders and brokers would mean more awareness of the scheme as it matures.

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Wes Mountain is a property reporter at The Age.AdvertisementAdvertisement