Interactive explainer
Upfront cost to buy estimator
Enter a property price, your state and whether you are a first-home buyer, and the estimator shows the indicative cash you need beyond the deposit: stamp duty (with the first-home concession applied), an LMI flag if your deposit is under 20%, plus conveyancing and inspection fees, summed as your upfront total.
Estimate your upfront buying cost
Indicative only. Stamp duty and concessions vary by state and change often; always confirm with your state revenue office and conveyancer.
Estimated upfront cash, beyond the deposit
This is the cash you need ON TOP of your deposit to settle. The deposit itself on this purchase is about . Stamp duty is the biggest variable: a first-home concession can cut it to zero under a state threshold.
Assumptions: indicative owner-occupier transfer-duty rates by state; a first-home concession is applied as full exemption under each state's threshold and tapering above it; LMI is estimated at about 2% of the loan when the deposit is under 20% and nil at 20%; conveyancing ~$2,000, inspection ~$600, loan and registration ~$900. Indicative 2026 figures. Sources: state revenue offices (Revenue NSW, State Revenue Office Victoria, and QLD/SA/WA equivalents) and industry estimates.
| State | Stamp duty | LMI (10% deposit) | Conveyancing + inspection | First-home concession |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NSW | ~$28,500 | ~$11,000 to $14,000 | ~$1,200 + ~$600 | No first-home transfer duty up to $800,000, then concessional to $1m. |
| VIC | ~$40,000 | ~$11,000 to $14,000 | ~$1,200 + ~$600 | First-home exemption up to $600,000, concessional $600,001 to $750,000. |
| QLD | ~$19,600 | ~$11,000 to $14,000 | ~$1,200 + ~$600 | First-home concession up to $700,000, partial to $800,000. |
| SA | ~$33,000 | ~$11,000 to $14,000 | ~$1,200 + ~$600 | First-home relief on eligible new homes; check current thresholds. |
| WA | ~$28,000 | ~$11,000 to $14,000 | ~$1,200 + ~$600 | First-home concession up to $450,000, phasing out by $600,000. |
The short answer
What it really costs to buy a house in Australia
Almost every first buyer plans for one number, the deposit, and then gets blindsided at settlement by everything else. The cash you actually need to buy a house in Australia is the deposit PLUS a stack of upfront costs that are easy to underestimate: stamp duty, which is the single biggest one and swings wildly by state and by whether you are a first-home buyer; Lenders Mortgage Insurance if your deposit is under 20%; conveyancing; building and pest inspections; and loan, registration and moving fees on top. Buying is also a sequence, from finance pre-approval through the search, the offer or auction, contracts and cooling-off, building and pest, to settlement, and the costly mistakes are skipping inspections or misreading the cooling-off rules, which are not the same in every state. This page walks the whole process and, more importantly, prices the cash you need beyond the deposit to actually settle.
Here is the core takeaway in one line: the deposit gets you to the table, but it is the upfront costs, led by stamp duty, that decide whether you can actually settle, so budget the whole stack from day one. That reframes the saving target. A buyer with a $75,000 deposit on a $750,000 home does not have $75,000 to spend, they have $75,000 minus $30,000 to $45,000 of upfront costs, and on the wrong side of a state stamp-duty threshold that gap is the difference between settling and falling over.
Reframe the assumption: the deposit is not the cost of buying, it is one line in it. Stamp duty, LMI, conveyancing and inspections are real cash due at or before settlement, and the largest of them, stamp duty, swings by tens of thousands depending on your state and whether you qualify for a first-home concession. Price the full upfront stack before you make an offer, not after.
The blind spot
Where the deposit-only budget falls apart at settlement
Most "buying a house" advice fixates on the deposit and the loan, and in doing so it quietly buries the costs that actually trip buyers up at settlement.
First, it treats the deposit as the cost of buying. The saving goal becomes "20% of the price" or "10% plus LMI", as if that cash buys the house. It does not, because stamp duty, conveyancing, inspections and loan fees all sit on top, and they are due around the same time. A buyer who saves exactly the deposit and not a dollar more is short at settlement.
Second, it averages away the stamp duty. Generic guides quote a national ballpark, but stamp duty is a state tax on a sliding scale, so the same $750,000 home can cost under $20,000 in duty in one state and around $40,000 in another, and a first-home concession can take it to zero. An average is useless for the one number that dominates your upfront cash.
Third, it glosses over the cooling-off rules. The advice says "you can change your mind", but the cooling-off window is different in every state and does not exist at auction at all. A buyer who assumes a safety net that is not there, or who skips the building and pest inspection to save a few hundred dollars, can be locked into a flawed purchase with no way out.
How the upfront cash is built, piece by piece
Expert analysis: the cash you need beyond the deposit
Stamp duty is the biggest cost, and it is a state lottery
Stamp duty, or transfer duty, is a state tax on the property transfer, calculated on the price on a steeply rising sliding scale. It is almost always the largest upfront cost after the deposit, and because every state and territory sets its own rates, thresholds and concessions, the same purchase costs very different amounts depending on where you buy. A full-price owner-occupier on a $750,000 home might face around $28,500 in NSW, near $40,000 in Victoria and about $19,600 in Queensland. The single biggest lever is first-home buyer status: Revenue NSW, the State Revenue Office Victoria and their state counterparts run concessions that exempt or sharply reduce duty under a price threshold, which can be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Lenders Mortgage Insurance: the price of a small deposit
If your deposit is under 20% of the value, you are borrowing more than 80%, and lenders generally require Lenders Mortgage Insurance. The catch buyers miss is that LMI protects the lender, not you, even though you pay for it. On a 10% deposit it commonly adds $10,000 to $15,000, often capitalised into the loan so you pay interest on it for years. Saving to a full 20% deposit removes it entirely, and some eligible first-home buyers can avoid it through a government guarantee scheme that lets them buy with a smaller deposit without the insurance. It is worth checking eligibility before assuming you must pay.
Conveyancing, inspections and the fees that add up
Beyond the two big-ticket items sit the costs that are individually modest but matter together. Conveyancing, a conveyancer or solicitor handling the legal transfer, runs about $1,000 to $3,000, and engaging them before you sign is how you avoid a bad contract. A building and pest inspection, about $400 to $800, is the cheapest insurance in the process and skipping it is a false economy. Then there are loan application and valuation fees, mortgage registration and transfer registration fees, council and water rate adjustments, and the move itself. None of these is huge alone, but together they routinely add several thousand dollars.
The process is a sequence, and cooling-off is where it bites
Buying runs in order: finance pre-approval so you know your budget, then the search, then an offer by private treaty or a bid at auction, then contracts, then building and pest, then settlement where the balance is paid and title transfers. The pressure point is cooling-off. A private-treaty contract carries a statutory cooling-off period, about 5 business days in NSW, 3 in Victoria, 5 in Queensland, 2 in South Australia, and none in Western Australia, during which you can withdraw for a small penalty. At auction there is generally no cooling-off period anywhere, so you are committed on the fall of the hammer, which is exactly why inspections and finance must be sorted before you bid.
What this looks like in real purchases
How the hidden costs catch Australian buyers out
The mechanics above are not theory. They are exactly how households end up short, surprised or stuck:
The stamp duty that emptied the buffer
A couple in Victoria save a 10% deposit on a $750,000 home and feel ready, then discover around $40,000 in stamp duty due at settlement on top of LMI. Just over the first-home concession threshold, they get no relief, and the costs they had not budgeted swallow the savings buffer they thought would cover the move.
The auction with no way back
A buyer wins at auction, thrilled, then realises there is no cooling-off period at auction and no inspection was done. A building report afterwards finds movement in the slab, but the contract is unconditional, so they own the problem and the repair bill with no recourse.
The LMI they never planned for
A first buyer with an 11% deposit assumes the bank simply lends the rest. The lender adds Lenders Mortgage Insurance of about $13,000, capitalised into the loan, and they spend years paying interest on a cost that protects the bank, not them, and that a slightly larger deposit or a guarantee scheme could have avoided.
The skipped inspection
A buyer skips the $600 building and pest inspection to save money on a private-treaty purchase, then signs without a defect found in time. Termite damage surfaces after settlement, costing tens of thousands, and the cheapest line in the whole budget turns out to be the one they should never have cut.
The insider insight
Your state and your buyer status move the price more than the listing does
Here is the part most buying guides never put plainly. Two buyers can pay the same price for an identical house and need wildly different amounts of cash to settle, and the difference is not the property, it is stamp duty. The state you buy in sets the rate scale, and whether you are a first-home buyer under a concession threshold can swing the duty from tens of thousands of dollars to zero. That makes your buyer status and your state, not the asking price, the biggest hidden variable in what it actually costs you to get the keys.
The non-obvious truth: the listing price is the headline, but the upfront costs are where buyers win or lose, and stamp duty is the one you can most influence before you commit. Buyers who settle comfortably are not the ones who found the cheapest house, they are the ones who checked their state's first-home concession, chose a price band that kept them under the threshold, and budgeted the full upfront stack before making an offer.
The practical consequence: do not size your purchase off the deposit and the loan alone. Check your state revenue office for the current first-home concession and its threshold, then budget stamp duty, LMI, conveyancing and inspections into the price you can actually afford, because that is the number that gets you to settlement.
Grounded in the analysis
What you should actually do before you buy
Specific moves that follow from how the upfront costs work, not generic advice.
Budget the full upfront stack first
Before you make an offer, add stamp duty, LMI if your deposit is under 20%, conveyancing and inspections to your deposit. Check your state revenue office for the current first-home concession and threshold, because it can wipe out the biggest cost.
Get finance pre-approval and the right cover
Secure pre-approval so you know your real budget, and decide whether a larger deposit or a first-home guarantee scheme can avoid LMI. Engage a conveyancer or solicitor early so they review the contract before you sign anything.
Never skip inspections or misread cooling-off
Book a building and pest inspection before you bid or during the cooling-off window, and confirm your state cooling-off rule. Remember there is generally no cooling-off at auction, so sort inspections and finance before the hammer falls.
Planning the wider move? Use our moving checklist, sort your utility connections, and when you are ready to shift, compare removalists.
Current figures, last updated 2026-06-16
Indicative upfront figures for buying a house in Australia in 2026. Sources: state revenue offices (Revenue NSW, State Revenue Office Victoria, and the QLD, SA and WA equivalents) and industry estimates. Stamp duty, concessions and thresholds change often and vary by state, price and buyer status, so treat every figure as a ballpark and confirm with your state revenue office and conveyancer.
The bottom line
Why the deposit is the start of the budget, not the end
Buying a house in Australia is a sequence of steps with a stack of upfront costs sitting underneath the headline price, and the deposit is only the first line. Stamp duty, the biggest cost, swings by tens of thousands with your state and your first-home status; LMI is the price of a small deposit; conveyancing and inspections are cheap protection you should never skip; and cooling-off rules differ by state and vanish at auction. So budget the full upfront stack before you make an offer, check your state concession, get pre-approval and never skip the inspection. With prices high across Australia in 2026, the buyers who settle comfortably are the ones who priced everything beyond the deposit, not the ones who simply saved the deposit and hoped.
Common questions
A Selectra expert answers your home-buying questions
Plan for roughly 4% to 6% of the purchase price in upfront costs on top of your deposit. On a $750,000 home that is commonly $30,000 to $45,000 extra, dominated by stamp duty, which can range from under $20,000 in Queensland to around $40,000 in Victoria for a full-price owner-occupier. Add Lenders Mortgage Insurance if your deposit is under 20% (often $10,000 to $15,000 on a 10% deposit), conveyancing of about $1,000 to $3,000, building and pest inspections of about $400 to $800, plus loan, registration and moving fees. First-home buyer concessions can wipe out or sharply cut the stamp duty, which is why your state and your buyer status change the number so much.
Stamp duty (transfer duty) is a state tax on the property transfer, and it is usually the biggest upfront cost after the deposit. It is calculated on the purchase price on a sliding scale, so it rises steeply on dearer homes, and the rate and thresholds differ in every state and territory. As a rough guide, a full-price owner-occupier on a $750,000 home might pay around $28,500 in NSW, $40,000 in Victoria or $19,600 in Queensland. First-home buyers often pay far less or nothing at all up to a state threshold, so always check your state revenue office for the current concession before you budget.
Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI) is generally required when your deposit is less than 20% of the property value, meaning you are borrowing more than 80% of the price. It protects the lender, not you, if you default, but you pay for it, and on a 10% deposit it commonly adds $10,000 to $15,000, often capitalised into the loan. Saving to a full 20% deposit avoids it entirely. Some first-home buyers can also sidestep LMI through government guarantee schemes that let an eligible buyer purchase with a smaller deposit without the insurance, so it is worth checking eligibility before you assume you must pay it.
It depends on your state, and on whether you buy at auction. A cooling-off period lets you withdraw from a signed contract within a set window, usually for a small penalty. It is about 5 business days in NSW, 3 business days in Victoria, 5 business days in Queensland and 2 business days in South Australia, while Western Australia has no statutory cooling-off period. Critically, properties bought at auction generally have NO cooling-off period at all, in every state, so you are committed the moment the hammer falls. Misreading this is one of the most expensive mistakes a buyer can make, so confirm the rule for your state and your purchase method before you sign or bid.
It is not legally compulsory, but skipping it is one of the riskiest savings in the whole process. A building and pest inspection, typically $400 to $800, checks the structure and looks for termites, damp, movement and other defects that are invisible to an untrained eye and expensive to fix. Done before you bid at auction or during a cooling-off period on a private-treaty purchase, it can save you from buying a house with tens of thousands of dollars of hidden problems, or give you grounds to renegotiate. Treat the inspection fee as cheap insurance, not an optional extra.
It is not strictly required in every state, but it is strongly recommended, because the legal transfer of property is detailed and the contracts carry real risk. A conveyancer specialises in property transfers and is usually the more affordable option, while a solicitor can also handle broader or more complex legal issues. Either reviews the contract of sale, runs the title and council searches, manages the deposit and steers you through to settlement. Budget roughly $1,000 to $3,000, and engage them early, ideally before you sign anything, so they can review the contract first.
