Major bank to open New Home Guarantee waitlist this week

The First Home Loan Deposit Scheme (HLDS) New Home Guarantee was among the measures announced by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in the 2020-21 budget.

Providing an additional 10,000 places under the popular First Home Loan Deposit Scheme (FHLDS), the New Home Guarantee only guarantees first home buyers loans or new homes and newly built homes.

National Australia Bank (NAB) has now announced that it will open a new waitlist for the FHLDS New Home Guarantee and start accepting conditional approval applications for customers seeking to be added to the waitlist (subject to satisfying key eligibility criteria) from this Wednesday (21 October 2020).

Brokers looking to submit an application to the bank for a customer are being advised to check the broker portal for eligibility and documentation requirements before submitting an application on Wednesday.

NAB has outlined to brokers that all new FHLDS New Home Guarantee applications should: 

• Include ‘9999-99-99999NAB9’ as the dummy FHLDS Place ID in the Security tab (to distinguish between New Home Guarantee and regular FHLDS applications); 
• Have the ABS Purpose as purchase of ‘construction of dwellings’ or ‘newly erected dwelling’ in the Loan Details tab; and 
• Ensure the ‘Current Value’ and ‘Estimated Value’ in the Security tab is within the acceptable property price cap for the state/region (see below table).

In an update to brokers, the major bank added that should a broker have a client that is currently on NAB’s FHLDS waitlist and they wish to move to the New Home Guarantee, the broker will be invited to submit their conditional approval application. The broker client will then be added to the New Home Guarantee waitlist before it opens to other customers. 

NAB has emphasised that the FHLDS waitlist for non-New Home Guarantees remains closed until further notice.

FHLDS New Home Guarantee details

The additional scheme allocations are available to first home buyers that are Australian citizens and at least 18 years old and wish to build a new dwelling or purchase a newly built dwelling with a deposit of between 5 and 20 per cent of the property’s value.

Eligible properties include:

• newly constructed dwellings (e.g. whether a freestanding house, townhouse or apartment)
• off-the-plan dwellings (e.g. whether a freestanding house, townhouse or apartment)
• house and land packages
• land and a separate contract to build a new home.

Like the original FHLDS, the New Home Guarantee is means tested.

The FHLDS NHG is only available to first home buyers who have a taxable income of up to $125,000 per annum for the previous financial year (if applying as a single applicant) or a combined taxable income of up to $200,000 per annum (if applying as a couple).

Investment properties are not eligible for the NHG. 

A revised set of property price caps also apply for eligible properties under the NHG.

They are as follows: