First Home Grants

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The First Home Grant is a perfect head start. It provides you with additional funds towards your deposit that doesn’t need to be repaid.

This one does have a few more rules around it when we will run through. Please note, that these are up to date as of December 2023 but are likely to change in the future, we have popped a link below of where you can check the latest criteria.

 

The Rules

  • Income Caps – In the last 12 months you must have earned less than $95,000 if you are single and $150,000 for a couple, or $150,000 or less if you are an individual buyer with one or more dependents.
  • You must have been contributing the minimum to KiwiSaver for 3 years – this is 3% of your earnings, or $1,000/year (whichever is lower). (These don’t have to be consecutive but must add up to 3 years)
  • Property price caps are depending on the area you live in and whether it is a new build or an existing house. The cap is higher for new builds than an existing property – if you go directly to the Kainga Ora website, you can see the most recent caps.

How much can you get?

  • $1000/year for up to 5 years for an existing house – so up to $5,000
  • $2000/year for up to 5 years if it’s a new build – so up to $10,000

Between these grant funds and your KiwiSaver, there is potentially a significant amount of money available for your first home that you haven’t had to save yourself.

 

Here is an example of a house deposit, which combined with say the Kainga Ora First Home Loan scheme allowing a house deposit of 5%. An individual earning $50,000/year, contributing 3% to KiwiSaver, matched by their employer, and saving $100/week. They have a deposit of $50 – 55k after 5 years with around 1/3 of that money not being saved themselves.

A tip with the first home grant income comes – you can get them, even if you are now earning over the caps as it looks at the last 12 months. So for example, you have had a pay rise, and now earning more than the earning cap. But your last 12 months’ earnings will be below the cap. You could apply now, and have a pre-approval valid for 6 months.

To apply for the First Home Grant, there is an online application on the Kainga Ora website, this takes you through exactly what you have to provide them, and how to get it from the IRD website.