Labor to deliver 5% deposits for all first home buyers and build 100,000 homes

ANTHONY ALBANESE MP
PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA

CLARE O'NEIL MP
MINISTER FOR HOUSING
MINISTER FOR HOMELESSNESS

A re-elected Labor Government will give all first home buyers access to 5 per cent deposits and invest $10 billion to build up to 100,000 homes for sale only to first home buyers.

We want more Australians to buy a home of their own sooner – with lower deposits.

Labor will enable every Australian to buy their first home with a 5 per cent deposit. There will be higher property price limits and no caps on places or income, in a major expansion of the existing scheme.

The Albanese Government will guarantee a portion of a first home buyer’s home loan, so they can buy a home with a 5 per cent deposit and not pay Lenders Mortgage Insurance.

The median home price in Australia today is $820,000. Five per cent of that is $41,000. The last time $41,000 covered the 20 per cent deposit for a median home was 2002. That’s the generational scale of this change.

This means a Sydneysider and first home buyer can purchase a $1 million apartment with a $50,000 deposit with their loan guaranteed by the Albanese Government.

It means a Queenslander and first home buyer can purchase an $850,000 home with a $42,500 deposit.

It means parents that feel compelled to loan money to their adult children to help buy a home can instead use that money for their own retirements.

For the average first home buyer, this cuts the time to save for a deposit and saves tens of thousands of dollars on Lenders Mortgage Insurance.

We know the long-term fix to housing is to build more homes. That’s why the Albanese Government will also invest $10 billion to partner with state developers and industry, to build up to 100,000 homes – with these homes reserved for sale only to first home buyers.

Through a decade in Government, the Liberals invested less than $5 billion in housing. Labor is now delivering a $43 billion Homes for Australia Plan. And driving the biggest home-building program since the post-war housing boom. Today’s announcements build on what the Albanese Government has done in its first term, which includes:

Giving renters a better deal – working with states to improve renters’ rights and increasing rent assistance by 45 per cent for around 1 million households;
Starting the biggest housing build in our history. Building approvals are up, labour shortages are easing, and Labor is delivering 55,000 social and affordable homes – with 28,000 already underway.
Already helping over 150,000 first home buyers purchase with deposits of 5 per cent or less.

For 10 years Peter Dutton and the Coalition did nothing while the housing crisis got worse. In the past three years, they’ve voted against building more homes and supporting first home buyers – and now they’re promising to cut tens of billions from housing if elected. It takes more than three years to clean up the 10 years of mess they created.

As at 13 April 2025.