The advertised price is not the number that empties your account at settlement. Around it sits a cluster of costs, some large, some small, some avoidable, that together decide how much cash you actually need. Here is the complete list for a NSW first home buyer, roughly in the order the money leaves.

What do you pay before you offer?

  • Building and pest inspection (houses) or strata report (apartments). A few hundred dollars per property inspected, and the only honest picture of what you are buying. Budget for the possibility of paying this more than once, inspecting a property you do not end up buying is normal, not wasted money.
  • Conveyancing and legal work. Your conveyancer or solicitor reviews contracts, orders searches and runs settlement. Fees are commonly in the low thousands including search costs, agreed up front.

What do you pay at exchange?

  • The deposit. Typically 10% of the price at exchange (often negotiable to 5%), payable by cheque or bank transfer depending on how you buy. At auction it is due on the day, unconditionally, which is why the auction guide insists your funds be ready before you raise a hand.

What do you pay at settlement?

  • Stamp duty, or not. Eligible first home buyers pay no NSW transfer duty up to $800,000 and a concessional amount up to $1 million; above that, full duty. For most eligible Sydney buyers this relief is the largest single saving in the entire purchase, check your position with the stamp duty calculator.
  • Lenders mortgage insurance, or not. Below a 20% deposit LMI normally applies, unless the 5% deposit scheme or an LMI waiver for your profession removes it. Where it does apply it is usually capitalised into the loan rather than paid in cash.
  • Lender and government charges. Loan setup or valuation fees vary by lender (many charge none), plus modest state registration fees for the mortgage and transfer.
  • Settlement adjustments. Council rates, water and strata levies are apportioned between buyer and seller at settlement, expect to reimburse the seller for the days you now own.

What costs come straight after settlement?

  • Insurance. Building insurance from settlement (often from exchange, ask your conveyancer) for houses; contents insurance for apartments, where the building itself is insured through strata.
  • Moving, connections, and the first surprises. Removalists, utility connections, a locksmith, the small repairs every new home reveals in week one. A modest buffer here is the difference between a stressful month and an ordinary one.

How much buffer should you keep?

Lenders like to see funds left over after settlement, and so should you: a few months of repayments in reserve turns a rate rise or a broken hot water system from a crisis into an inconvenience. When setting your target price, treat the buffer as a cost, money the purchase must leave behind, not spare change it may.

Put your own numbers on it

What does the cash budget look like at $800,000?

Putting the list together at the price point that matters most in NSW, for an eligible first home buyer using the 5% deposit scheme. These are illustrative figures to show the shape of the budget, not quotes; your conveyancer and lender will give you the real ones. What sits inside the conveyancing line is explained in conveyancing costs in NSW.

  • Deposit: 5% of $800,000, which is $40,000.
  • Stamp duty: $0 for an eligible first home buyer at this price. Without relief, a little over $30,000.
  • Lenders mortgage insurance: $0 under the scheme. Outside it, a 95% loan at this price would attract a substantial premium, usually added to the loan.
  • Conveyancing, searches and legal fees: typically in the low thousands, agreed in advance.
  • Inspections: a strata report or building and pest inspection, a few hundred dollars each, possibly more than once.
  • Lender and registration fees: from nothing to a few hundred dollars depending on the lender, plus state registration fees for the mortgage and transfer.
  • Settlement adjustments, insurance and moving: a few thousand dollars, depending on timing and distance.

The cash to complete lands somewhere in the high $40,000s for this buyer, before the post-settlement buffer, and the single biggest reason it is not $80,000 or more is the combination of the duty exemption and the scheme. The same purchase without either of them is a different financial event entirely, which is why eligibility is the first thing to establish, not the last.

Do houses and apartments cost differently?

A house brings building and pest inspections, full building insurance from exchange or settlement, and the ongoing cost of maintaining a roof, a garden and everything under them, with no one to share it. An apartment brings a strata report instead of a building inspection, contents rather than building insurance, and quarterly levies that fund the shared maintenance. Neither is cheaper across the board; the costs simply arrive in different shapes, and the apartment guide explains how to read the strata side of that.

What does the first year cost?

The budget does not end at settlement. In the first year, expect council rates and water charges for a house, strata levies for an apartment, insurance renewals, and a list of small items that every new home produces: a lock, a tap, a window that sticks. The most useful planning habit is to treat your loan repayment as one line in a housing budget rather than the whole of it, and to keep the post-settlement buffer intact for at least the first year. Lenders are not being difficult when they ask about funds left after settlement; they have seen what the first year costs.

Where do buyers most often under-budget?

Three lines are missed more than any others. The first is the cost of inspecting properties you do not buy: a strata report or building inspection on two or three serious contenders before the one you purchase is normal, and it is money well spent, but it needs to be in the budget. The second is settlement adjustments, which buyers often do not expect at all; if the vendor has paid the quarter’s rates or levies in advance, you reimburse them for your share at settlement, and on an apartment with high levies that can be a four-figure line. The third is the post-settlement buffer, which is not a cost in the accounting sense but is the difference between a purchase that feels secure and one that does not. Lenders ask about funds remaining after settlement for the same reason you should: the first year of ownership has a way of presenting bills that renting never did.

The flip side is the line buyers most often over-budget, which is lenders mortgage insurance. Many first home buyers assume a small deposit means a large LMI bill, when the scheme removes it entirely for eligible buyers under the price cap. Establishing that early can reduce the required cash by tens of thousands of dollars and change which price range is realistic.

Questions people ask

Can buying costs be added to the loan?

Mostly not: LMI usually can be added to the loan, but most other costs are paid from your own funds at or before settlement. This is why “deposit plus costs” is the number to save towards, not the deposit alone.

Do I need a buyer’s agent?

Not as a rule. A buyer’s agent is a professional who searches and negotiates on your behalf for a fee, and suits buyers who are time-poor or buying from interstate. For most first home buyers in Sydney the money is better held as buffer.

When is the deposit actually paid?

At exchange of contracts, usually 10% of the price, sometimes negotiated to 5% in a private treaty sale. The balance of your funds is paid at settlement, typically six weeks later, when the loan is also drawn.

Every line above shifts with price, property type and eligibility, which is why generic totals mislead. The buying costs calculator builds the itemised picture for your price and situation, and the worked example at $800,000 shows the whole cash position at the most consequential price point in NSW. For the full picture including your borrowing side, the free assessment puts deposit, costs and capacity on one page.

Sources: Revenue NSW, First Home Buyers Assistance Scheme and 2026-27 transfer duty rates; NSW Land Registry Services fees for 2026-27, checked 17 October 2026.

General information only, not credit, legal or tax advice. Your situation is assessed properly before any recommendation. Government scheme details change; figures are current at the time of writing.