What was the Kāinga Ora First Home Grant?

As of May 22, 2024, Kāinga Ora stopped accepting applications for its First Home Grant. However, while the cash grant is no longer available, Kāinga Ora is still running its First Home Loan scheme, which continues to provide assistance to first home buyers with low deposits.

For more information on the First Home Loan, click on the link below:

→ Read more: What is Kāinga Ora’s First Home Loan?

First Home Grant: What was it?

The grant used to provided access of up to $10,000 for a new home, or $5000 for an existing property. If you were a first-time home buyer, or a previous homeowner in a similar position to one, and you’d been making regular KiwiSaver contributions for three to five years, you could apply for a First Home Grant through Kāinga Ora.

In this article, we cover:

• The conditions of the First Home Grant
• KiwiSaver contribution requirements
• Deposit requirements
• How the grant worked
• The price/grant caps
• What is Kāinga Ora?

What were the conditions?

The conditions of the First Home Grant were:

• Be over 18
• Earn less than the yearly income caps
• Not own any property or land
• Have contributed at least the minimum amount to KiwiSaver (or complying fund or exempt employer scheme) for three years or more
• Buy a property within the regional house price caps
• Agree to live in the home for at least six months

Also, the house/land purchased had to meet certain property requirements.

KiwiSaver contribution requirements

You had to have been regularly contributing at least the minimum amount to KiwiSaver for three years: 3% of annual income, or $1000 annually.

Deposit requirements

You had to provide evidence that you’d a deposit of at least 5% of the purchase price of the house you wanted to buy or build. This could include money:

• From a KiwiSaver first-home withdrawal
• From a First Home Grant approval/pre-approval amount
• Saved in a bank
• Already paid towards a property
• Gifted by a close family member

How did the grant work?

You could apply for either:

• Pre-approval before you started looking for a property
• A post-purchase grant approval 

If you bought an existing home

You could get $1000 for each of the three (or more) years you’d paid into KiwiSaver, to a limit of $5000 for five or more years.

If you bought a new home or land

You could get $2000 for each of the three (or more) years you’d paid into KiwiSaver, to a limit of $10,000 for five or more years.

What were the price and income caps?

The house price caps were set region by region. There were two price caps for each region, one for buying an existing home, and one for buying a new build, which was higher. The house-price caps ranged from $400,000 in some rural areas, up to $925,000 for new builds in the expensive regions of Queenstown-Lakes and Thames-Coromandel.