The First Home Owner Boost in Australia: A Case Study of Outcomes in the Sydney Housing Market

This article looks at the impact of the First Home Owner Grant (FHOG) ‘Boost’, a cash grant to first home buyers, which was introduced by the Australian Federal Government as part of the stimulus package in response to the global financial crisis (GFC) between October 2008 and September 2009. This policy initiative, based on a pre-existing FHOG, introduced in 2000 as a temporary support for the house building industry following the introduction of the Federal Goods and Services Tax, provided a major additional financial stimulus targeted at first home owners at a time when the GFC was threatening to destabilise the home purchase market. The policy was also promoted as a way of stimulating demand for new residential property to support jobs retention in the residential development industry. New South Wales, and in particular Sydney, provides a lens through which we explore the outcomes of the stimulus in terms of the geography of FHOG take-up and the types of property bought. It also assesses the impact of the Boost on first home owner purchase rates and the impact this had on post-stimulus housing demand.