First home buyers
Buying your first home in Craigieburn: a 2026 finance guide
Craigieburn has become one of the busiest first-home markets in Melbourne — a young, fast-growing suburb about 25km north of the city, with newer housing, a train line into the CBD and prices that are still within reach for a lot of first-time buyers. We’re based just up the road in Mickleham, so it’s an area we know well. Here’s a plain-English guide to what buying your first home in Craigieburn actually involves in 2026, from deposit to approval.
Why Craigieburn works for first home buyers
Craigieburn (postcode 3064) is one of Melbourne’s fastest-growing suburbs — its population has climbed well past 70,000 — and it skews young, which is part of why it’s so popular with first-home buyers and young families. Practically, a few things make it work:
- Transport — the Craigieburn train line runs into the city, and the Hume Highway is on your doorstep.
- Newer housing — a mix of established homes and brand-new house-and-land estates, so there’s genuine choice at the entry level.
- Relative affordability — in recent data, Craigieburn’s median house price has sat around the $700,000 mark, though property prices move constantly, so treat that as a rough guide and check current figures before you rely on them.
How much deposit you’ll need
The old “20% deposit” rule is really just the point at which you avoid lenders mortgage insurance (LMI). Plenty of buyers in Craigieburn get in with less — often 5–10% — by paying LMI, or by using a guarantor or a government scheme (more on those below).
Here’s the raw deposit at a few price points around the local market. It’s just arithmetic, but it makes the target concrete:
| Property price | 5% deposit | 10% deposit | 20% deposit |
|---|---|---|---|
| $650,000 | $32,500 | $65,000 | $130,000 |
| $700,000 | $35,000 | $70,000 | $140,000 |
| $750,000 | $37,500 | $75,000 | $150,000 |
Remember these are the deposit alone — you’ll also need funds for stamp duty (if it applies), conveyancing and other costs. Our deposit guide breaks that down, and the calculators are a quick way to sanity-check the numbers.
The grants and schemes that can help
If you’re an eligible first home buyer, a few government measures can genuinely reduce what you need up front. As at August 2026:
- Stamp duty exemption or concession — in Victoria, eligible first home buyers pay no stamp duty up to $600,000, with a reduced amount on a sliding scale between $600,001 and $750,000 (State Revenue Office). A lot of Craigieburn purchases fall in or near that band, so this is often the biggest saving.
- First Home Owner Grant (FHOG) — a $10,000 grant for new homes only (building or buying brand new) in Victoria (State Revenue Office).
- First Home Guarantee — lets eligible first home buyers purchase with as little as a 5% deposit and no LMI, with the government guaranteeing part of the loan (Housing Australia).
These can sometimes be used together, but eligibility, income caps, price caps and available places change over time — treat the figures above as a starting point and confirm the current rules (or ask us to check) before you count on them.
Established home or a brand-new build?
In Craigieburn you’ll realistically be choosing between two paths:
- An established home — generally move-in ready. The FHOG doesn’t apply, but the first-home stamp duty saving still can, and the finance is a standard home loan.
- A new build or house-and-land package — this is where the $10,000 grant is aimed, and the growth corridor around Craigieburn has plenty of new estates. The trade-off is that building is financed differently — the money is released in stages as the home is built, not all at once.
If building is on your radar, we’ve covered how that finance works in a separate guide: building in Melbourne’s north.
Getting approved: the steps
The path is fairly consistent whichever home you choose:
- Pre-approval first. It tells you your realistic budget and lets you make offers with confidence — here’s what pre-approval actually means.
- Know your borrowing power. It depends on your income, existing commitments and deposit, not just the sticker price. The calculators give you a first estimate.
- Get your documents in order — ID, income, savings history and liabilities.
- Compare lenders, then lodge, and manage the application through to settlement.
How a local broker helps
We’re a mortgage broking team based in Mickleham, so Craigieburn and the surrounding northern suburbs are home turf. We compare loans across a wide panel of lenders rather than pushing one bank’s product, there’s no cost to you for most home loans, and as brokers we owe you a best-interests duty. Mostly, our job is to turn “we should save more” into a clear plan with real numbers.
If you’d like that clarity for your own situation, book a free consultation — bring your questions, there’s no obligation.
This article is general information only and doesn’t consider your personal circumstances. Lending criteria and government scheme rules apply and change over time. Confirm current figures with the linked government sources before acting.