Buying a property in Australia involves far more than the price tag on a listing. Beyond the purchase price, buyers need to budget for stamp duty (also called transfer duty), legal and conveyancing fees, building and pest inspections, lenders mortgage insurance if their deposit is under 20%, and loan establishment and moving costs.
Depending on the state or territory and whether a buyer qualifies for first home buyer concessions, these extra costs can add 4% to 7% of the property’s value on top of the purchase price, meaning tens of thousands of dollars can be needed before settlement even begins.
Many buyers underestimate this total, which is exactly the kind of complexity an experienced buyers agent like Moove helps navigate, anticipating every cost upfront so there are no last-minute surprises.
This guide breaks down every expense involved in buying a property in Australia, state by state, so you can budget with confidence, understand exactly where your money is going, and move through the process without any unwelcome shocks along the way.
Stamp Duty (Transfer Duty)
Stamp duty, also known as transfer duty, is a state government tax charged on the purchase of property in Australia. It applies in every state and territory, but the rate, how it is calculated, and the concessions available to first home buyers differ significantly depending on where the property is located. The tax is calculated on the purchase price or the market value of the property, whichever is higher, and is typically paid by the buyer at or shortly after settlement, usually through the buyer’s conveyancer or solicitor. For an established home with no concessions applied, stamp duty commonly adds tens of thousands of dollars to the total cost of a purchase, making it one of the largest upfront costs in any property transaction.
In New South Wales, the First Home Buyers Assistance Scheme gives eligible first home buyers a full stamp duty exemption on new and existing homes valued up to $800,000, with a sliding-scale concession applying to properties valued between $800,000 and $1,000,000. In Victoria, eligible first home buyers pay no stamp duty on properties valued up to $600,000, with a concession applying to properties valued between $600,000 and $750,000. Both schemes generally require the buyer to be an Australian citizen or permanent resident who has not previously owned property in Australia, and to move into the home within 12 months of settlement.
In Queensland, eligible first home buyers pay no stamp duty at all on a new home, with no price cap applying, while established homes are fully exempt up to $700,000 and receive a partial concession up to $800,000. In Western Australia, eligible first home buyers currently pay no stamp duty on a new or established home valued up to $500,000, with a concession applying to properties valued up to $700,000 in the Perth metropolitan and Peel regions. The Western Australian Government announced in its May 2026 state budget that these thresholds would rise to $600,000 for the full exemption and $800,000 for the concession, but this change had not yet passed parliament as of mid-2026, so buyers should confirm the applicable thresholds with RevenueWA or their conveyancer before relying on the higher figures. In South Australia, eligible first home buyers pay no stamp duty on a new home with no price cap, though established homes do not currently qualify for any first home buyer stamp duty relief and attract the standard rate regardless of buyer type.
The Australian Capital Territory is making the most significant change of all. From 1 July 2026, every first home buyer in the ACT will be exempt from stamp duty entirely, regardless of the property’s value or the buyer’s income, making the ACT the first jurisdiction in Australia to fully abolish the tax for first home buyers. This builds on the ACT’s long-running program to phase out stamp duty in favour of broader land tax, and represents a major shift for anyone planning to buy their first home in Canberra from the middle of 2026 onward.
Stamp duty rules change regularly and vary so much from state to state that even experienced buyers can misjudge how much they will actually owe, sometimes discovering the gap only after they have already made an offer. This is where having a buyers agent like Moove involved early makes a genuine difference: Moove’s buyer’s agents factor stamp duty and any applicable concessions into a client’s budget from the very first conversation, so offers are made with an accurate picture of total costs rather than just the advertised price. For clients buying close to a concession threshold, this guidance can be the difference between qualifying for a full exemption and missing out on it by a few thousand dollars.
Legal and Conveyancing Fees
Buying a property in Australia requires a conveyancer or solicitor to manage the legal side of the transaction, including reviewing the contract of sale, conducting title searches, preparing the statement of adjustments, calculating stamp duty, and coordinating the transfer of funds and title on settlement day. This work is a legal requirement in every state and territory, and the fee paid for it is separate from stamp duty, the real estate agent’s commission, or any other cost involved in the purchase.
Conveyancing and legal fees for a standard residential purchase in Australia generally range from around $800 to $3,000, depending on the state, the complexity of the transaction, and whether a licensed conveyancer or a solicitor is engaged. Licensed conveyancers, who specialise specifically in property transfers, are typically the more affordable option and are available to operate independently in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory. In Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory, conveyancing work must legally be carried out by a solicitor within a law firm, since neither jurisdiction permits independently licensed conveyancers, which can make fees in Brisbane and Canberra slightly higher than in cities where conveyancers operate on their own.
On top of the professional fee, buyers should budget for disbursements, the out-of-pocket costs a conveyancer or solicitor pays on the buyer’s behalf for items such as title searches, council and water rate certificates, and land registry fees. These disbursements typically add a few hundred dollars on top of the professional fee and should be confirmed in writing before a buyer commits to a particular conveyancer or solicitor, since a quote that excludes disbursements can look misleadingly low.
Engaging a conveyancer or solicitor early, ideally before signing a contract or bidding at auction, gives them time to review the contract of sale and flag any special conditions, defects, or unusual clauses before the buyer is legally committed. This is an area where working with a buyers agent like Moove adds real value: Moove’s buyer’s agents work alongside a client’s chosen conveyancer or solicitor throughout the purchase, flagging contract terms and timing issues early so legal review never becomes the bottleneck that holds up an exchange or risks a buyer missing out on a property they want.
Building and Pest Inspections
A building and pest inspection is a professional, visual assessment of a property’s condition carried out before purchase, covering structural elements such as the roof, walls, and foundations alongside an inspection for termites and other timber pests. In Australia, these inspections are generally carried out in line with Australian Standard AS 4349.1 for building inspections and AS 4349.3 for timber pest inspections, and a written report detailing any defects, safety hazards, or pest activity is provided to the buyer, usually within 24 to 48 hours of the inspection taking place.
A combined building and pest inspection for a standard residential property in Australia typically costs between $400 and $900, though prices vary by city, property size, age, and complexity. Larger or older homes, heritage properties, and houses on stumps or with extensive subfloor access tend to sit at the higher end of this range, while smaller apartments and newer homes are usually cheaper to inspect. Booking the building and pest inspection together with the same inspector is generally more cost-effective than booking the two separately, since the inspector only needs to attend the property once.
Timing matters as much as cost. For properties sold by private treaty, buyers typically have the option to make their offer conditional on a satisfactory building and pest inspection, giving them time to arrange the inspection and negotiate or withdraw if serious issues are found. For properties going to auction, there is usually no cooling-off period once the hammer falls, which means the inspection needs to be booked and completed before auction day, not after. In Queensland, where the standard REIQ contract typically includes a building and pest inspection period of around 14 to 21 days, buyers should still book inspections promptly to avoid running short on time if access to the property is delayed.
A poor result on a building and pest inspection does not necessarily mean walking away from a property, since many defects can be used as genuine negotiating leverage to renegotiate the price or have the seller address the issue before settlement. This is where a buyers agent like Moove plays a hands-on role: our buyer’s agents coordinate inspections at the right point in the purchase timeline, interpret the findings in plain English, and use any issues identified to negotiate on the client’s behalf, rather than leaving a buyer to work out on their own whether a defect is a deal-breaker or simply a bargaining chip.
Loan Costs
Arranging finance to buy a property involves more than just the deposit. Most lenders charge a loan application fee, sometimes called an establishment or set-up fee, which typically ranges from $150 to $700 and covers the administrative cost of processing and approving the loan. Many lenders also charge a valuation fee of around $100 to $500 to have an independent valuer confirm the property is worth what the buyer is paying, and a mortgage registration fee, a government charge of roughly $145 to $190 depending on the state, to register the mortgage against the property’s title.
The largest loan-related cost for many buyers is Lenders Mortgage Insurance, commonly called LMI. LMI applies when a buyer borrows more than 80% of the property’s value, meaning their deposit is less than 20%, and it protects the lender, not the buyer, if the loan cannot be repaid. The cost of LMI is generally calculated as a percentage of the loan amount, commonly somewhere between 1% and 5%, and can add anywhere from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of buying, depending on the size of the loan and the deposit available.
Many first home buyers in Australia can now avoid LMI altogether through the Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme, formerly known as the First Home Guarantee, which allows eligible buyers to purchase with a deposit as low as 5% while the government guarantees the remaining gap to 20% so LMI is not required. Since the scheme was expanded in October 2025, it has had no income caps and unlimited places, subject to price caps that vary by location, making it accessible to a much broader range of first home buyers than in previous years.
Choosing the right loan structure and lender can be just as important as choosing the right property, since the difference between paying LMI and avoiding it can run into tens of thousands of dollars. This is one of the reasons Moove works closely with mortgage brokers as part of a client’s buying team: Moove’s buyer’s agents coordinate timing between finance approval and property offers, so a client’s pre-approval, deposit strategy, and eligibility for schemes like the Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme are all factored in before an offer is made, rather than being worked out under pressure once a property has already been found.
Moving Expenses
Moving expenses cover everything involved in physically relocating into a new property once settlement has taken place. For a local move within the same city, hiring professional removalists typically costs somewhere between $300 and $3,500, depending on the size of the home, the number of movers required, how many hours the job takes, and how easy access is at both the old and new addresses. Most removalists charge by the hour, generally somewhere between $100 and $220 per hour for a crew of two to four movers and a truck, with a minimum booking of two to three hours.
For an interstate move, the cost is usually quoted as a flat rate based on the volume of belongings and the distance travelled, rather than by the hour. Moving a small one or two-bedroom household interstate commonly costs between $1,500 and $3,000, while a larger three or four-bedroom household can run from $4,000 to $10,000 or more, depending on the route and whether packing and storage services are included.
In addition to removalist costs, buyers should budget for connecting or transferring utilities such as electricity, gas, water, and internet at the new property, which typically costs somewhere between $20 and $100 per service, plus more again if a same-day or urgent connection is needed. Other smaller costs to factor in include packing materials, which can add a couple of hundred dollars for boxes, tape, and wrapping, and any cleaning, storage, or temporary accommodation needed if the buyer’s move-in date does not line up exactly with their settlement date.
While moving expenses are smaller than costs like stamp duty or loan fees, they tend to land all at once in the days immediately around settlement, on top of everything else a buyer is already managing. This is a practical area where a buyers agent like Moove can take pressure off a client: Moove’s buyer’s agents help clients plan settlement timing realistically from the outset, so moving day, utility connections, and other logistics are scheduled with enough notice rather than being rushed into place at the last minute.
Government Grants and Concessions
Beyond stamp duty relief, most Australian first home buyers can also access a separate First Home Owner Grant, a one-off cash payment funded by state and territory governments rather than a reduction in tax. Unlike stamp duty concessions, which can apply to both new and established homes in some states, the First Home Owner Grant is generally only available for buying or building a new home, and the amount, property value cap, and eligibility rules differ from state to state.
In New South Wales, eligible first home buyers can receive a $10,000 grant for a new home valued up to $600,000, or a new house and land package valued up to $750,000. In Victoria, the grant is also $10,000, available for new homes valued up to $750,000. In Western Australia, the grant is $10,000 for a new home valued up to $800,000. In South Australia, eligible first home buyers can receive $15,000 for a new home valued up to $650,000. In the Australian Capital Territory, there is no separate cash grant; first home buyer support is instead delivered entirely through the ACT’s stamp duty exemption.
Queensland currently offers the most generous grant of the six, at $30,000 for a new home valued up to $750,000, but this is a temporary boost rather than the long-term rate. The $30,000 amount applies only to contracts signed by 30 June 2026, after which the Queensland First Home Owner Grant is scheduled to revert to $15,000 from 1 July 2026, so buyers close to exchanging in Queensland should confirm which rate applies to their contract date.
Two federal schemes sit alongside these state grants. The First Home Super Saver Scheme allows eligible first home buyers to make voluntary contributions into their superannuation fund and later withdraw them, plus deemed earnings, to help fund a deposit, generally taxed more favourably than money saved outside super. Eligible buyers can contribute up to $15,000 per financial year and withdraw up to $50,000 in total over their lifetime, and each member of a couple can access their own $50,000 entitlement, for a combined total of up to $100,000.
The Australian Government’s Help to Buy scheme, launched in December 2025, is a shared equity program in which the government contributes up to 40% of the purchase price for a new home or 30% for an existing home in exchange for an equivalent share in the property, allowing eligible buyers to purchase with a deposit as low as 2% and without paying Lenders Mortgage Insurance. Help to Buy is income-tested, with caps of $100,000 for individual applicants and $160,000 for joint applicants or single parents, and property price caps that vary by city, and it cannot be combined with a state-based shared equity scheme, though it can generally be used alongside the First Home Owner Grant and stamp duty concessions.
With several state and federal schemes potentially available at once, and not all of them able to be combined, working out the right combination for a specific purchase can be genuinely complex. This is where a buyers agent like Moove adds value beyond the property search itself: Moove’s buyer’s agents help clients understand which grants, concessions, and schemes they are likely to qualify for early in the process, so a client’s true buying power is clear before they start making offers, rather than being discovered partway through a purchase.
Buyers Agents: How They Help You Save Money
A buyers agent is a licensed professional who works exclusively for the property buyer, in contrast to the real estate agent handling the sale, who is engaged and paid by the seller and is legally obligated to act in the seller’s interest. A buyers agent’s role typically covers searching for suitable properties, assessing their value, negotiating on the buyer’s behalf, and managing the process through to settlement, with the buyer’s interests as the sole priority throughout.
One of the most significant ways a buyers agent can save money is through access to off-market properties, meaning homes that sell without ever being publicly advertised. According to the Real Estate Buyers Agents Association of Australia, up to 20% of properties sold nationwide, or roughly 100,000 properties a year, change hands off-market, and these opportunities are typically only accessible through an agent’s existing relationships with selling agents and vendors rather than through public listing sites. A buyers agent can also remove much of the emotion from negotiating, since they are not the one who will live in the property and are less likely to overpay simply because they have become attached to it.
The financial case for using a buyers agent is well documented. Aussie Home Loans reports that buyers who engage a buyers agent save an average of $44,000 through negotiation compared with buying unrepresented, and in a 2023 survey by the Real Estate Buyers Agents Association of Australia, 85% of buyers said their buyers agent helped them secure a better outcome than they believed they could have achieved alone. Industry fees are commonly charged either as a percentage of the purchase price, typically between 1.5% and 3%, or as a fixed fee, often somewhere between $8,000 and $20,000 or more depending on the city and the property’s value. A fixed fee has a practical advantage: since it does not increase as the purchase price rises, the agent has no financial incentive to let the price creep upward during negotiation.
Moove uses fixed fees for owner-occupiers and investors buying properties under $2.5 million. For owner-occupiers, the Negotiate package starts at $7,500 for buyers who have already found a property and want expert negotiation and auction representation, while Classic at $12,000 and Classic Plus at $20,000 add a full property search, off-market access, and an increasing level of in-person support up to unlimited auction attendance. For investors, Moove’s Invest package is $15,000 and Invest Bespoke is $25,000, both covering a full search across Moove’s data on more than 15,000 Australian suburbs, with the Bespoke tier extending to multi-unit dwellings, renovation strategy, and development opportunities. For properties above $2.5 million, Moove charges a flat 1.1% fee under its Premium service.
Whichever buyers agent a buyer chooses, the value proposition rests on the same idea: paying a known, upfront fee in exchange for expertise, market access, and negotiating leverage likely to be worth considerably more than the fee itself, while removing much of the time and stress involved in searching for and securing a property alone.
Budgeting Beyond the Purchase Price
Buying a property in Australia involves far more than the advertised price. Stamp duty, legal and conveyancing fees, building and pest inspections, loan costs such as Lenders Mortgage Insurance, and moving expenses can together add roughly 4% to 7% of the purchase price on top of what a buyer pays for the property itself, depending on the state, the type of property, and whether any first home buyer concessions apply.
Much of this cost can be reduced, deferred, or avoided altogether for buyers who plan ahead. Stamp duty exemptions and concessions, the First Home Owner Grant, the First Home Super Saver Scheme, and the Australian Government’s Help to Buy and 5% Deposit Scheme can each make a meaningful difference to how much cash a buyer needs upfront, and several of these schemes can be combined for buyers who meet the eligibility criteria. Engaging the right professionals early, including a conveyancer or solicitor, a mortgage broker, and a buyers agent, helps ensure these costs are factored into a buyer’s budget from the outset rather than discovered partway through a purchase.
This is exactly the kind of guidance Moove provides every day. As a tech-enabled buyers agent working with buyers across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, and Canberra, Moove helps clients understand their true buying power, access off-market opportunities, and negotiate with confidence, all for a transparent, fixed fee agreed upfront.
Spend 30 minutes with one of our property experts to better understand Moove and how we can help you buy your home. Book a FREE consultation and find out exactly what your own purchase is likely to cost.
