How Single Parents Can Buy With a 2% Deposit

The kids are finally in bed and you open the banking app you've been avoiding all week.

Rent went up again in March. Your name is the only one on the lease, and the only one on the payslip.

Somewhere along the way you decided buying was a thing couples did. Two incomes, two sets of savings, one of those families.

There's a stream of the federal scheme built for exactly this

On 1 October 2025 the Home Guarantee Scheme was renamed the Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme, and it was split into two streams.

The General Stream is the 5% deposit pathway most people have heard about.

The Single Parent Stream is the other one. It's for a single parent or single legal guardian of one or more dependent children, and the minimum deposit is 2%.

What 2% actually looks like out west

On a $650,000 house in Tarneit, 2% is $13,000.

That isn't the whole cost of buying. There's conveyancing, building and pest, moving, and a bit of buffer on top. But the deposit itself becomes a number you can picture.

The government guarantees part of the loan for your lender, so there's no Lenders Mortgage Insurance. On a low deposit, LMI is usually the biggest single cost you'd otherwise be wearing.

Since October 2025 there are also no income caps and no waiting list. What you earn doesn't lock you out, and you're not queuing behind anyone for a place.

You don't have to be a first home buyer

This is the part almost everyone misses.

The Single Parent Stream doesn't require first home buyer status. Treasury's wording is that people in this stream may have previously owned, or may be divesting a property interest.

So if you owned a home with an ex and the property settlement has gone through, you're not automatically out of the running.

What the rules do require is that you hold no other property interest once your new home settles.

If any of that sounds like your situation, it's worth having someone run the real numbers before you rule yourself out. Book a chat and we'll work out where you actually stand.

The conditions that trip people up

Worth knowing these before you get your hopes up:

• You need to be single. If you're separated but not divorced, the scheme doesn't count you as single.
• You apply on your own. No joint applications.
• You need to live in it. Owner occupier only, with principal and interest repayments.
• Price caps apply. In Melbourne and Geelong it's $950,000. Across the rest of Victoria it's $650,000.
• You apply through a participating lender, not to Housing Australia directly.

Once you're approved you get 90 days to find a place and sign a contract of sale.

Stamp duty is a separate question

The federal scheme and the Victorian stamp duty rules are two different systems, and they ask different questions.

Victoria's first home buyer exemption wipes duty entirely up to $600,000, then slides into a concession up to $750,000. But it does ask you to be a first home buyer.

So you can qualify for the 2% deposit and still owe stamp duty, if you've owned before. That's a decent chunk of money to find out about late.

The trade off nobody puts in the brochure

A smaller deposit means a bigger loan.

A bigger loan means bigger repayments, for longer, on one income. The scheme changes what you need saved. It doesn't change what a lender thinks you can afford each month.

That second number is the one that really decides this, and it's the one people check last.

Lenders also treat child support, family tax benefit and part time income very differently from each other. Two banks can read the same payslips and land a long way apart.

Where to start

Get a feel for your borrowing power before you fall for a listing. The calculators on this site are free and don't need an account.

Then talk to someone who has actually used this stream. We've helped over 100 first home buyers into the market, and we're rated 10/10 on Reviewr by over 100 customers.

Book a time and bring your questions. Including the ones you think are silly.

Let's get you into a home.