MORE than 2,600 home buyers in the Ipswich region have taken advantage of the Albanese Labor Government’s expanded Home Guarantee Scheme (HGS) since the Federal election last year.
With 1,696 HGS certificates issued to 2,631 individuals in Ipswich since May 2022, the region has had one of the highest rates of take-up nationally.
The news comes as new research out this week revealed the expanded scheme is helping a growing number of Australians across the country into home ownership.
The National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation’s Trends and Insights report shows the expanded HGS helped 41,700 Australians to purchase a home in 2022-23, the first full financial year of the Albanese Government.
In addition, the enhanced HGS is assisting more essential workers, such as teachers, nurses and social workers, to purchase a home with around 7,721 guarantees issued to key workers in 2022-23, up 37% from 2021–22.
According to the research, the HGS is also helping more young people into home ownership, with more than one in two places taken up by people under the age of 30, up from around one in three in 2019-20.
The HGS provides a government guarantee of up to 15 per cent for eligible home buyers, so people with a deposit of as little as five per cent can avoid paying lenders’ mortgage insurance.
The Government has expanded eligibility criteria for the HGS to help even more Australians, with friends, siblings, and other family members eligible for joint applications from 1 July this year.
The scheme has also been extended to non-first home buyers who have not owned a property in Australia in the last 10 years, which supports those who have fallen out of home ownership, often due to financial crisis or relationship breakdown.
Federal Member for Blair Shayne Neumann welcomed the latest figures, saying the strong level of interest in the program showed it was meeting a genuine need in the community.
“It’s fantastic so many locals have taken advantage of the Albanese Labor Government’s targeted support for home buyers,” he said.
“I’m pleased our expanded Home Guarantee Scheme is helping key workers find a secure place to call home and that so many young people have benefitted.
“We’ll keep working to ensure more Australians have a safe and affordable place to call home, including the introduction of our Help to Buy shared equity scheme, which will join the Home Guarantee Scheme next year.”
Mr Neumann emphasised that helping Australians into home ownership was just one part of the Government’s broader housing policy agenda to ensure more locals in Blair have a safe and affordable place to call home.
“We’re working hard to help people in Ipswich, the Somerset Region and Karana Downs area, whether they’re buying, renting or needing a safe space to spend the night,” Mr Neumann said.
In addition to the HGS, the Albanese Government’s ambitious housing reform agenda includes:
l A $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund to build 30,000 new social and affordable rental homes in the fund’s first five years
l A new national target to build 1.2 million well-located homes
l A $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator to deliver thousands of new social homes across Australia
l Increasing the maximum rate of Commonwealth Rent Assistance by 15 per cent, the largest increase in more than 30 years
l New incentives to boost the supply of rental housing by changing arrangements for investments in Build-to-Rent accommodation.
