So you want to buy your first home, eh? You probably plan on starting a family and have images of white picket fences enclosing a green yard surrounding a nice two-storey house under sunny skies.

But it’s expensive, which you probably already know which is probably why this article caught your attention! Because it’s now possible to get free money, financial help for which you don’t have to pay anything back at all, towards the purchase of your very own first home. And it’s all perfectly legal!

And perfectly true. Even though it sounds too good to be true.

Well, it’s not – not too good to be true. Which means that it is. It’s as true as these very words you’re reading, as the very screen on which you are reading them. But there is a catch.

Yes, a catch. That’s what you were looking for, weren’t you? Well, you’re a smart cookies all right.

But it’s not what you think. You needn’t sell your soul to the devil, or do without an arm or a leg. But you do need to be Australian. As in, “Aussie citizen.”

That’s because the cash grant is being made available by the Australian government. Its purpose is to help the country’s property markets by making it easier purchase one’s own home.

First introduced in the year 2000, this grant in effect helps to offset your first-year property taxes. But if you are buying a newly built home or having one built for you, you can use some of this money for the property itself rather than just pay off the taxes on it. Eligibility is straightforward. You must not have had such a grant before, nor have owned residential property prior to the beginning of Fiscal Year 2000, and you must occupy the home for at least six months within the first year of ownership. Finally, the grant is only good for real persons, and cannot be used by corporate entities. This last stipulation is critical if you plan on claiming the grant for investment purposes. But if all goes well, you could receive upwards of twenty-one thousand dollars for your own house!

If you were an Australian in Australia.

But despair not; the country is one of those which recognize dual citizenship. If that’s somehow not feasible for you, there is always the round-about method of hiring yourself an Australian partner! Okay, maybe not, as that is likely illegal…but you get the point: where there’s a will, there’s a way!

Furthermore, this Aussie example points up something all real estate investors should know: government largess. It is in the self-interest of most governments, on so many different levels, to promote home ownership. Most real estate investors, even small-time fry (be honest, now), probably won’t want to bother with all the cumbersome rules involved, as such government programs are largely designed for first-time owners who actually intend to reside on the property. However, for a good number of you, these programs could be just the little bit of a financial boost to get you started! So keep your eyes and ears open for them, as they are easy to miss, when publicized at all, typically buried in some paragraph in the back of a newspaper.

Author Bio: Barbra I. Miller writes frequently on real estate topics for various online publications. Please visit 4RealEstateWebsite.com for more great articles from industry insiders such as Isaac Toussie and others!

Category: Real Estate
Keywords: real estate, australia, property, international, property markets, investing, realty, advice