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The Northern Territory’s newly minted grant packages for local homebuyers are already driving strong business for local brokers just a week after they officially commenced on October 1.
Mortgage broker Laura Kempster from Easy Loans in Darwin said enquiries had increased as soon as the Country Liberal Party won the NT’s election in late August promising homebuyer incentives.
Interest surged when details of the packages were confirmed on September 25. “It was almost overwhelming the amount of inquiries we had as soon as it was announced,” Kempster (pictured above) said.
The HomeGrown Territory grant offers $50,000 for first home buyers who buy or build a new home, while a First Home Owner Grant will offer $10,000 to purchase an established home.
Existing homeowners have not been left out – the Fresh Start New Home Grant has put $30,000 on the table for existing buyers who seize the moment to buy or build a new home.
Buyers will need to live in the new houses for 12 months in order to qualify for the grants.
Easy Loans is expecting the grants to generate ongoing positive outcomes for the local brokerage. “Over the next 12 months, we're gearing up to have a really big year,” Kempster said.
“We’ve already had that influx of phone calls, of new leads, of appointments being booked. Even just one week of surge is a month or two worth of additional deals.
“So there’s that flow-on effect. We can already feel it.”
Easy Loans expects to connect more buyers with finance in the market who were “holding off, waiting to see if they were going to be able to do anything in the future”.
“We have had a lot of those enquiries from people who have good savings, and they've been saving for a long time. They've just been waiting for the right moment,” Kempster said.
The housing grants are expected to primarily benefit first home buyers, as they provide a financial boost to surmount the financial hurdles required to buy or build a new home.
Kempster said buyers needed to pay a substantial deposit to build a new dwelling, and cover for the higher construction costs required to build houses that can withstand potential cyclones.
The extra financial support will give a cohort of first home buyers the money they need to be able to commit to building a substantial enough home for their families, she said.
“People were having to compromise on the kinds of houses they were building just to get into homeownership, and this extra funding boost means they don't have to do that; they can build what they need with enough money and get off that rental wheel. It’s very exciting.”
Easy Loans could benefit from a marketing strategy it has had over the last 8 months that has seen it invest more in supporting customers who will not qualify for finance right away.
Kempster said that although it was not timed for the CLP’s new grant program, the business had wanted to increase the financial support it gave this cohort of potential future borrowers.
“We just felt like we had this aspect of our business that was missing; we didn't want people to feel brushed off, if we had to say something like, ‘Sorry, I can't help you, come back to me when you've got 50 grand’,” Kempster said.
“We've got a lot of educational materials that we've created, marketing campaigns that we put people on to send them like a little newsletter every now and then with budgeting and saving tips, and tell them what is the bank actually looking for and things like that.”
The strategy to help future buyers into homeownership may work over the next 12 months.
“I think doing that is going to really help us, because there are going to be people who are not quite ready, and they don't quite have enough to get them over the line to access these grants, but maybe in the next six to 12 months, just before the cut-off, they will.”
