For first home buyers in Australia

Buy your first home with the numbers on your side.

HomePlanner is a free guide, a set of planning tools and a vetted marketplace for Australian home buyers. Start wherever you are.

Start with the guide Create a free account

No download, no email required for the guide. The account is free too.

app.homeplanner.io/budgetDemo profile
HomePlanner's deposit timeline for a demo buyer: $58,000 cash, $3,753 a month of savings capacity and a current maximum budget of $545,278, with what that budget grows to if they wait six months, one year, 18 months or two years.

The deposit timeline in the HomePlanner app, for a demo buyer with made-up figures.

Which one are you?

Start where you are, not at the beginning.

The guide, the tools and the app are organised around four stages. Pick the one that sounds like you and skip the rest.

01

Haven't started

  • Not sure where to start
  • May not have a deposit yet
  • Not sure what you're looking for
  • Would like to buy at some stage

This is me

02

Getting prepared

  • Feel financially ready
  • Know what you want to buy
  • Understand it, but want to know more
  • Looking for the confidence to buy

This is me

03

Actively looking

  • Financially ready
  • Know what you're looking to buy
  • Want clarity on the process
  • Don't know how to get a good deal

This is me

04

Found a home

  • Found the one
  • Not sure how to buy it
  • Concerned about potential issues
  • What happens next?

This is me

The Ultimate HomeBuyers Guide

Everything a first home buyer needs to know, with none of the sales pitch.

Four stages, 23 chapters published, with a checklist at the end of each one. Drawn from interviews with buyers about the thing they wish they'd known, and read against the actual scheme rules rather than a lender's brochure.

It's free and it's independent. Nobody pays to be in it, there's no email gate, and where a chapter says "work out your borrowing power" it links straight to the tool that does it.

Open the guide

Stage 1, in 10 chapters

  1. 1Why buy property at all?
  2. 2Are you ready for this journey?
  3. 3Understanding the journey, end to end
  4. 4Strengthening your financial fitness
  5. 5How the government can help
  6. 6The First Home Super Saver scheme
  7. 7Other ways to speed up a purchase
  8. 8Types of mortgages and how they work
  9. 9All things finances around property
  10. 10Stage 1 checklist

The people you'll meet

Everyone in the process has a job. Only one of them works for you.

Each of them introduces themselves in the guide, and then admits what they'd rather not tell you. Click through.

What I do

I market the property, run the inspections and the auction, and negotiate the sale. I'm friendly, I'm helpful, and I'll answer every question you have.

Paid by: The seller

What I'd rather not tell you

I work for the vendor. My job is the highest price, and everything I tell you about other buyers' interest is legal, but it isn't necessarily for your benefit. A price guide is a guide.

The app

Free planning tools that show the working.

Estimates, plainly labelled as estimates. Your numbers are yours and we don't sell them.

What a lender would lend you, and how it's worked out.

Your income and spending, tested the way lenders test them: at today's median variable rate from the rates feed plus the 3-point buffer, with living costs at least the lenders' benchmark. Rent drops out, because it stops when you buy.

app.homeplanner.io/borrowing-powerDemo profile
HomePlanner's borrowing power screen on a phone for a demo buyer: they could borrow up to $487,278 at a 10% deposit, $545,278 including their cash, assessed at the market's median variable rate plus the 3-point buffer lenders apply.
  1. How it's worked out: today's median variable rate plus the 3-point buffer lenders test at
  2. What a lender would lend, at your deposit size
  3. What you could buy, with your cash on top

When you could buy, and what waiting gets you.

Enter your income, spending and savings once. The deposit timeline turns them into a budget for today, and shows what six months, a year or two more of saving would add to it.

app.homeplanner.io/budgetDemo profile
Timeline choices for the demo buyer: buy now with a budget of $545,278, or wait six months ($567,798) or a year ($590,318).
  1. Today's budget: what a lender would lend, plus your cash
  2. What each extra six months of saving adds

Government help, without answering the same question twice.

The eligibility checker asks about the 5% Deposit Scheme, the super saver scheme, stamp duty concessions and your state's grant, and fills in whatever your profile already knows.

app.homeplanner.io/eligibility-checkerDemo profile
The scheme eligibility checker for the demo buyer, with six of nine questions already answered from their profile.
  1. Six of nine questions answered from what you've already entered

The purchase as a list you tick off.

Your stage is the same one the guide uses. Each task opens the tool that does it, and your documents live alongside.

app.homeplanner.io/purchase-journeyDemo profile
The purchase journey at the Getting prepared stage, on a phone: tasks to optimise borrowing capacity and compare prices and deposits, each linking to the tool that does it.
  1. Your stage, the same four the guide uses
  2. Each task opens the tool that does it

Screens from the app, with a demo profile and made-up figures. Create a free account

The marketplace

Professionals we'd send our own friends to.

Licensed, checked, and asked the awkward questions first: who pays them, how much, and what isn't included. Nobody pays to be listed. Where there's an offer for HomePlanner buyers, it's written down. How the marketplace works

  • Mortgage brokers

    Panel breadth disclosed. Commission disclosed.

  • Conveyancers

    Fixed fee, searches and disbursements itemised up front.

  • Building and pest inspectors

    Written report with photographs. You can attend.

  • Buyer's agents

    Fixed fee preferred. Engagement letter in plain English.

  • Financial advisers

    Fee for service. Licensed under an AFSL.

  • Insurance

    Replacement-cost cover explained before you sign.

A note from the founder

"It would be so much easier the second time around."
The line we heard most often from the buyers we interviewed

That tells you how blind and unsupported people go into the biggest purchase of their lives, up against seasoned professionals, alone. We don't believe it needs to be that way.

Read the letter · Paddy, founder

Know where you stand before you start looking.

The guide is open. The account is free. Neither asks for a card.

Read the guideCreate a free account