First Home Buyer Loans Mackay
We arrange first home buyer loans across Mackay, and the grants and schemes that go with them. Show us a house you like and we will tell you what you can get on it: which grants you qualify for, which schemes stack, what deposit you actually need, and whether a lender will go there.
Most of it turns on one thing here. The Mackay median sits above the federal scheme cap, so the five per cent deposit scheme rules out a lot of established houses before you have started. We would rather you knew that about a house now than at contract. Working that out before you fall for a place is most of what a mortgage broker is for.
How We Help You Buy Your First Home
We do three things. We work out which first-home help you qualify for, we stack the schemes that combine, and we arrange the loan itself: choosing the lender, lodging the application and handling the paperwork through to settlement. All of it against what houses here actually cost and the caps that apply to them.
On first home buyer loans Mackay the eligibility work matters more than the rate comparison, because Queensland runs several schemes at once, they have different rules, and they interact. Getting the order and the timing right changes how much deposit you need and what you can afford to buy. That is what we are checking in the first conversation.
You might be at any of three points: still saving and wanting to know how close you are, standing in front of a place and needing to move quickly, or holding a bank answer that says you cannot borrow enough. All three are worth a call.
What Happens After You Contact Us
The process runs the same way every time and there is nothing hidden in it.
- 01
First conversation, about 20 minutes.
You tell us what you earn, what you have saved and where you are up to. We tell you roughly where you stand. Free, and there is no obligation attached to it.
- 02
Scheme and eligibility check.
We come back with which schemes you qualify for, which of them combine, and what each is worth to you in dollars, including whether the $700,000 cap rules out the kind of Mackay property you had in mind.
- 03
Borrowing capacity.
We work out what you can genuinely borrow once the three-point buffer and your existing commitments are applied. This is usually different from what an online calculator told you.
- 04
Pre-approval, typically one to two weeks.
We lodge with the lender that best fits your situation. You go looking with a real number instead of a hopeful one.
- 05
Settlement, usually four to six weeks from an accepted offer.
We manage the lender, chase the valuation and coordinate with your conveyancer or solicitor.
Have your photo ID, your last few payslips, three to six months of savings history, and a list of your debts and credit card limits to hand before the first call and we can move a good deal faster. If you are missing something, start anyway. Most of the first conversation is about the house, not the paperwork.
What People Ask Us First
What do you need from me to get started?
Photo ID, your last few payslips, three to six months of savings history, and a list of your current debts including credit card limits. If you have already found a place, the contract or the listing helps.
You do not need all of that for the first conversation. We can give you a useful answer from your income, your deposit and whether you are looking at new or established.
What does it cost me to use you?
Nothing for the first conversation, and nothing at all on a standard residential loan. The lender pays us a commission when your loan settles, which is how broking works in Australia, so checking which schemes you qualify for costs you nothing, whether or not you turn out to qualify.
If a fee ever applied to your situation, we would set it out in writing in our Credit Guide before you decided whether to go ahead. You would never find out about a cost after the fact.
What if I turn out not to be eligible for anything yet?
Then we tell you, and we map out what would change it. Usually it comes down to deposit size, a card limit that needs cutting, or a timing issue with a scheme round.
We put a rough timeline on it so you know whether you are three months away or eighteen. Plenty of people are closer than they think, and some are further away than they hoped. Both are worth knowing now rather than after a declined application.
$700,000
First Home Guarantee price cap, MackayMackay sits on the Queensland "other areas" cap, not the $1,000,000 figure. Only the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast hold the higher cap in this state.
Source: firsthomebuyers.gov.au caps table, 2026What We Do About the $700,000 Cap
The First Home Guarantee is the biggest lever we have on your deposit: five per cent down, no lenders mortgage insurance, because the government guarantees part of the loan instead of you paying to insure it. Your cap here is $700,000, and the Mackay median sits above it at around $744,302 (secondary provider data, January 2026. We verify the current figure before you rely on it).
So the first thing we do is tell you whether the scheme is realistically in play for you at all. If it is, we point you at the parts of the market where it still works: new builds, land-and-build packages under the cap, and units.
We Check the Valuation, Not Just the Price
Both the purchase price and the lender's valuation have to come in at or under $700,000. A contract at $695,000 that values at $710,000 fails, and it fails late, after you are committed. That is the risk we are watching on a Mackay purchase near the cap, and it is the one buyers doing this alone almost never see coming.
How We Stack Your Mackay Grants and Concessions
Four separate things can attach to a first home buyer loan in Mackay, with different rules and different thresholds. The work is not listing them. It is working out which ones your specific purchase collects, and in what order.
What That Is Worth on a New Build
On a new home under $750,000 you can collect the $30,000 Queensland First Home Owner Grant and pay no transfer duty at all, with no value cap on that concession (Queensland Revenue Office, qld.gov.au). The duty saving is usually worth more to you than the grant, and together they change the cash you need to settle by more than most people expect.
On an established house you get neither. You get the first home concession instead, full up to $700,000 and phasing out to $800,000, and a lot of Mackay houses land squarely in that phase-out band. We work out what you would actually pay before you commit to a price.
The One Where Mackay Beats Brisbane
Queensland's Boost to Buy shared equity scheme runs on a two per cent deposit with the government taking an equity share. South East Queensland allocations were reported exhausted, but Mackay counts as regional Queensland, where allocations were still open when we last checked. Rounds move without notice, so we confirm the live position with Queensland Treasury before we build any plan around it rather than having you count on a place that has gone.
Whether We Would Point You at Building
Often, yes, and for one reason: the established median is above the scheme cap while a new build under $750,000 collects the grant and the nil duty as well. That is a large difference in actual dollars and it is the biggest decision in front of you.
We are not steering you into a new estate. We put the numbers on both paths so you can weigh them against the things numbers do not capture, like an established place in North Mackay with a grown garden and a shorter drive to work. If you do build, the finance runs on progress payments rather than one settlement, and we cover that on our construction and house-and-land loans page.
What Decides How Much You Can Borrow
This is the part we spend the most time on, because it is the part you can still change. We check these early, because most of them can be improved before you apply rather than after you are declined. Getting a mortgage broker onto it early is worth more here than any rate comparison.
The Buffer That Shrinks Your Answer
Every lender tests you at your actual rate plus three percentage points (APRA, unchanged since October 2021 and reaffirmed 28 May 2026). That is why the bank comes back smaller than your own maths suggested. It is not negotiable, so we build your plan to the tested number from the start and nothing collapses at assessment.
Your Deposit, and the Ways Around Mortgage Insurance
Mortgage insurance generally applies once you are borrowing more than 80 per cent of the value, and there are three ways around it: the guarantee scheme, a family guarantor using their equity as additional security, or saving further. Waiting is sometimes the wrong answer, because Mackay prices have moved faster than most people save. We model the options side by side so you are choosing rather than guessing.
The Things That Quietly Cost You Borrowing Power
Lenders want genuine savings, meaning money you built up yourself rather than a lump sum that landed last week. A gifted deposit is workable but it changes which lenders will look at you, so we need to know early.
They also apply a benchmark floor to your living expenses no matter how frugal you actually are, and your credit card limits count against you even when the balance is zero. Cutting a limit before we lodge is free and it can move your number. We go through all of it first, rather than letting a lender find it.
First Home Buyer Loans Questions
Why does the $700,000 cap not match Mackay house prices?
Because the cap is set by a national classification, not by what houses here actually cost. Mackay is not a designated regional centre in Queensland. Only the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast are. So we sit on the "other areas" cap of $700,000 rather than the $1,000,000 figure (firsthomebuyers.gov.au, 2026).
With the median house price around $744,302 in January 2026, that means a good share of established houses here sit above the cap. It is a real mismatch and you are not misreading it. What we do is find the routes that still work: new builds, land and build packages under the cap, and units. We do that rather than pretending the scheme fits every purchase.
Does my new build under $750,000 get both the $30,000 grant and nil stamp duty?
Generally yes, and that combination is the reason building stacks up for a lot of first home buyers here. The grant needs the home to be new and valued under $750,000 including the land. The nil transfer duty concession on a new home or vacant land has no value cap at all.
They are two separate rules with two different thresholds, which is exactly why they get confused. We check both against your specific contract and tell you what each is worth in dollars before you sign anything.
Can I use Boost to Buy in Mackay?
Possibly, and this is one of the few places where the answer is more likely to be yes. South East Queensland allocations were reported exhausted, but Mackay is regional Queensland, where allocations were still open when we last checked. The approved lender is Unity Bank.
Allocation rounds move without much notice, so we confirm the current position with Queensland Treasury before building any plan around it. We will not have you counting on a place that has already gone.
Who is eligible for the $30,000 First Home Owner Grant with first home buyer loans Mackay?
You need to be buying or building a new Mackay home valued under $750,000 including the land, to be an Australian citizen or permanent resident aged eighteen or over, and neither you nor your partner can have owned residential property in Australia before. You then have to move in within twelve months and live there for at least six.
The word doing the work is new. An established house does not attract the grant at any price, which is the single most common disappointment we deal with. If you are building as an owner-builder, it counts from when the foundations go in.
Are first home buyer loans Mackay still eligible for the Queensland grant?
Yes, and at the full $30,000. If you have read that it was dropping back to $15,000 after 30 June 2026, that is out of date: the increased grant continues for eligible contracts signed from 1 July 2026 onward (qld.gov.au).
So there is no deadline to rush a contract for. What is worth checking against the calendar is Boost to Buy, where allocations run in rounds and can close, and we confirm the live position on that before building any plan around it.
How much do you need to earn for a $700,000 mortgage?
There is no single income figure, and anyone who gives you one is guessing. What decides it is the assessment rate, not the actual rate: APRA requires lenders to test you three percentage points above the rate you would really pay (APRA, reaffirmed 28 May 2026). So the question is never what the repayments are, it is what they are assessed at.
Three things then move the answer more than your salary does. Your existing debts, where a credit card counts against you on its limit rather than its balance. Whether the loan takes you past six times your income, because from February 2026 banks can only write a fifth of their new lending above that line, though non-bank lenders are exempt. And in Mackay, how much of your income is base pay: allowances and overtime get shaded, and lenders differ on that by enough to change the answer entirely.
That is why we work it out against real lender policy rather than a calculator. Two lenders looking at the same payslip can land a long way apart.
How much deposit do you need on a $700,000 Mackay property?
If the Mackay purchase qualifies for the federal 5% Deposit Scheme, five per cent of the price plus your purchase costs, with no lenders mortgage insurance because the government guarantees part of the loan. At $700,000 that is right on the cap for this area, so the valuation has to come in at or under it as well as the contract price.
Without the scheme you are looking at twenty per cent to avoid mortgage insurance, or a smaller deposit with the insurance premium added. On a new build the nil transfer duty concession removes the largest of the purchase costs, which changes the total cash you need more than most people expect.
Who You Deal With on a First Home Loan
The person who answers is the person who works out which schemes you qualify for and lodges the application. Nothing gets handed to a processing desk once you are past the first conversation.
Most first home buyers arrive with the deposit question and leave with a different one, usually about the cap or the timing. That is the conversation worth having early, while the answer can still change what you look at.
- Where we are
- Mackay, QLD 4740
- Where we work
- The city and its suburbs, north to the beaches, south past the port, and inland through the cane country to the Pioneer Valley
- What it costs to ask
- Nothing. The first conversation is free and the lender pays us.
Talk to a Mortgage Broker in Mackay
Tell us where you are up to and we will tell you what your options are, which lenders suit your situation and what the next step looks like. If the answer is that you are better off waiting three months, we tell you that instead.
If a fee ever applied to your situation it would be in writing in our Credit Guide, before you decided anything.