What Cup Day Can’t Change About First Home Schemes

It's Tuesday arvo. Half of Melbourne is watching the Cup, and your phone buzzes at 2:30 with a news alert about the Reserve Bank.

Your partner reads it out. You both go a bit quiet. Then one of you asks the question every renting couple asks on RBA day.

"Does this change our plan?"

Some of it, yes. A lot of it, no. Here's how to tell the difference.

What the Reserve Bank actually moves

The RBA sets the cash rate. Lenders then decide whether to move their own variable rates, and by how much.

That flows into one number you care about: how much a lender will let you borrow. Lenders test your repayments at a rate above the one you'd actually pay. So when rates rise, the borrowing figure you worked out in winter can come down.

That's the part that moves. Now for the parts that don't.

The 5% Deposit Scheme doesn't move

The federal 5% Deposit Scheme is set by the government, not the Reserve Bank. A rate decision doesn't touch its rules.

• Deposit. You can still buy with 5% down and no Lenders Mortgage Insurance.
• No income caps. Those were removed in October 2025, along with the limit on places.
• Price caps. $950,000 in Melbourne and Geelong, and $650,000 in regional Victoria.

So on a $600,000 house in Wyndham Vale, 5% is still $30,000 on Wednesday morning. Same as it was on Monday.

Stamp duty and the grant don't move either

Victorian stamp duty is state law. The RBA has no say in it.

• First home duty. Zero on a home up to $600,000, with a sliding concession up to $750,000.
• First Home Owner Grant. $10,000 on a new home valued up to $750,000. Established homes don't qualify.

One thing to watch. The state election is on 28 November, and you'll hear promises about stamp duty. A promise isn't a rule until it's passed and the State Revenue Office publishes it. Until then, the figures above are the ones that apply.

If you want to see where all of this leaves your numbers after Tuesday, book a chat. We'll re-run your borrowing figure with whatever the banks do next.

Help to Buy and super saving stay put

The federal shared equity scheme, Help to Buy, has the same settings it had last week.

• Deposit. 2% from you.
• Government share. Up to 30% on an existing home, or up to 40% on a new one.
• Income caps. From 1 July 2026, $103,000 for a single applicant, or $165,000 for joint applicants and single parents.

The First Home Super Saver Scheme hasn't changed either. You can still release up to $15,000 of voluntary contributions from any one financial year, and $50,000 in total per person.

Where a rate rise does bite is your repayments. With Help to Buy, the loan is smaller because the government owns a share. That's one of the trade-offs to weigh against owning all of the home with a 5% deposit.

The two numbers that set your ceiling

Here's the bit that gets missed on RBA day.

Your buying range is set by two separate numbers. One is the scheme's price cap. The other is what a lender will let you borrow, plus your savings.

Whichever is lower is your real ceiling.

For a lot of couples in the west, the borrowing number sits below the $950,000 cap. So a rate change can move your ceiling even though the scheme hasn't changed at all. For others, savings set the limit, and a small move in rates barely shows.

You won't know which one you are until you run it.

What to do with Tuesday's news

You don't need to guess what the Reserve Bank will do. Nobody can tell you for sure, and it isn't something you can control.

What you can control is having current numbers. A borrowing figure from before the latest rate moves is a guide, not a plan. Your deposit, your scheme eligibility and your stamp duty position are the steady parts. Build around those.

We've helped over 100 first home buyers into the market, and we're rated 10/10 on Reviewr by over 100 customers. Whatever happens on Cup Day, book a chat and we'll show you where your numbers land the same week.

Let's get you into a home.

Figures verified 30 October 2026 against Housing Australia, firsthomebuyers.gov.au, the State Revenue Office Victoria and the ATO.