Learn more about home loans for Indigenous Australians

If you’re an Indigenous Australian, you can apply for any loan that appeals to you. However, you may be eligible for extra support to help you buy the home you want.

You could get:

• a grant to help with your purchase;
• lower rates on loans, or;
• support to help you manage your finances and keep up with your monthly payments after buying a home.

The Indigenous Home Ownership Program from Indigenous Business Australia is a scheme designed to help you buy an existing property or build a new one. You won’t need a big deposit to get a loan this way, and you can benefit from a low interest rate.

Lengthy loan terms are available to keep your monthly payments low, and in some case the loan term can be extended further to make it easier for you to manage. You could be eligible for extra help if you want to build on communal land.

You can download the forms you need to register interest in an IBA home loan from the IBA website. After you have returned them, you will have to wait in a queue until the IBA has enough funding free to assist you, at which point you will be invited to make a formal application.

In some cases, the IBA will be able to loan you all the money you need directly; in others it will lend you part of it and you can arrange to borrow the rest from another lender.

Western Australians can take advantage of the KeyStart Aboriginal Home Loan scheme.

This offers you two options: you can buy your home in the usual way, or you can opt to share ownership with the Housing Authority.

Deposits can be as low as 2% and you can make additional repayments at no extra charge.