Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee (RFHBG)
Get into your regional home sooner!
The RFHBG is part of the Home Guarantee Scheme (HGS), an Australian Government initiative to support eligible home buyers purchase a home sooner, in a regionals area.
It does this by allowing Housing Australia to issue 10,000 guarantees each financial year for eligible loans to regional home buyers with a deposit of between 5 and 20% of the property value. This enables an eligible home buyer to purchase a home with as little as 5% deposit without paying Lenders Mortgage Insurance.
Refer to the RFHBG Fact Sheet and Information Guide for full details.
Make an appointment with a MyState Bank lender to start your application
What is a regional area?
A regional area is defined as:
- the Statistical Area Level 4 (ASGS SA4 2016) areas in a State or the Northern Territory that are not a capital city of that State or Territory; and
- Norfolk Island; or the Territories of Jervis Bay, Christmas Island or Cocos (Keeling) Islands;
as defined in the version published by The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in July 2016.
The greater capital city areas of each state and the Northern Territory; and the entire Australian Capital Territory are excluded from the RFHBG. Home buyers in these areas may be eligible for the First Home Guarantee or Family Home Guarantee.
Access the Regional Checker – allows home buyers to enter the suburb (or postcode) of their current home and the suburb (or postcode) they would like to purchase in, so they can confirm if they would be eligible for the RFHBG.
Contact MyState for more information, including which regional areas you may be able to purchase in.
Who is eligible?
Check your eligibility using the Housing Australia Eligibility Tool - a short questionnaire to help home buyers identify which Guarantee/s they may be eligible for,
Generally to apply for the RFHBG, home buyers must be:
- Individual or joint applications.
- Australian citizens or permanent residents who are at least 18 years of age.
- Individual applicants with a taxable income of up to $125,000 per annum, and joint applicants with a combined taxable income of $200,000 per annum, as shown on the Notice of Assessment issued by the Australian Taxation Office.
- Applicants (or at least one applicant if applying as joint applicants) who have lived in the regional area or adjacent regional area they are purchasing in for the preceding 12-month period to the date they execute the home loan agreement.*
- Applicants can be either first home buyers or previous homeowners who haven’t owned a property in Australia in the past 10 years. Prior property ownership includes an interest in real property (including owning land) in Australia, a lease of land in Australia or a company title interest in land in Australia.
- Applicants who intend to be owner-occupiers of the purchased property.
* Employees who have been required to relocate for work may be exempt from this requirement, applicants should check with their Participating Lender if this exemption applies.
