Microburbs Australian Property Data

Calculators · First home buyer grants and concessions

calculators_first_home

Read-onlyIdempotent

What being a first home buyer is worth on one purchase: every first home grant in the state (eligible or not, and why), the stamp duty saving against an ordinary owner-occupier, and the total.

Who it's for: first home buyers — Australian citizens or permanent residents buying a home to live in, who have never owned a home in Australia. Grants mostly go to new homes under a price cap; duty exemptions and concessions mostly apply to established homes and land too, up to a cap.

What it covers: the First Home Owner Grant and any other first-home cash grant the state pays, and the first home duty exemption / concession (via the same rules as /calculators/stamp-duty, shown line by line in duty_breakdown). For vacant_land, the grant is assessed as land bought to build a new home on; the cap on land plus build is spelled out in detail.

Caveats: eligibility also depends on residence requirements (moving in within a year and living there 6–12 months), every buyer's history and some income tests — this answers on price, property type and date. Federal schemes (deposit guarantees, super savings) are not included. See caveats.

Price: 1¢ per call.

Tool call template

Replace each placeholder with a value matching the input schema. Only required parameters are included; add optional parameters as needed.

{
  "id": 1,
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "arguments": {
      "state": "<state>",
      "price": "<price>"
    },
    "name": "calculators_first_home"
  }
}

Input Schema

Name	Required	Description	Default
`price`	Yes	Purchase price in dollars (for vacant land: the land price).
`state`	Yes	State or territory: NSW, VIC, QLD, WA, SA, TAS, ACT, NT.
`regional`	No	Outside the capital city (WA: outside Perth and Peel; also the WA grant's northern cap). Ignored where a state draws no such line.
`dependants`	No	Dependent children — raises an income-tested scheme's limit (ACT).
`off_the_plan`	No	Bought off the plan. Changes the answer only where a state has an off-the-plan concession.
`contract_date`	No	Contract date (YYYY-MM-DD); picks the rates in force on that day. Default: today in Sydney.
`property_type`	No	`established` (an existing home), `new` (a new home or off-the-plan, never lived in), or `vacant_land` (land to build a home on).	established
`household_income`	No	Gross household income for the past year — used by income-tested schemes (ACT). Omit and we assume you meet the income test.

Schema Changelog

Changes observed during successful MCP inspections.

AddedNov 13, 2026

TDQS

A4.6/5.0

Behavior5/5

Does the description disclose side effects, auth requirements, rate limits, or destructive behavior?

Annotations already declare a safe, idempotent, closed-world read, so the bar is lower, yet the description adds real behavioral context beyond them: a '1¢ per call' cost signal, stated scope limits (federal schemes excluded, residence/income tests not modelled), and what the response contains (duty_breakdown line-by-line, detail with the land-plus-build cap, caveats). These are exactly the disclosures an agent needs before invoking and interpreting results.

Agents need to know what a tool does to the world before calling it. Descriptions should go beyond structured annotations to explain consequences.

Conciseness4/5

Is the description appropriately sized, front-loaded, and free of redundancy?

Bold-labelled sections (What/Who/What it covers/Caveats/Price) front-load the value proposition and make scanning easy, and the cost line is placed last where it belongs. It is longer than strictly necessary — several phrases repeat the grant-versus-duty distinction — but no section is filler.

Shorter descriptions cost fewer tokens and are easier for agents to parse. Every sentence should earn its place.

Completeness5/5

Given the tool's complexity, does the description cover enough for an agent to succeed on first attempt?

For an 8-parameter financial calculator with no output schema, the description covers purpose, eligibility scope, what the response fields mean (duty_breakdown, detail, caveats), known limitations, and per-call cost — everything an agent needs to call it correctly and interpret the result.

Complex tools with many parameters or behaviors need more documentation. Simple tools need less. This dimension scales expectations accordingly.

Parameters4/5

Does the description clarify parameter syntax, constraints, interactions, or defaults beyond what the schema provides?

With 100% schema description coverage the baseline is 3, but the description adds meaning the schema does not: for vacant_land the grant is assessed as land bought to build on and the combined cap appears in detail, and it clarifies that contract_date selects the rates in force. These tie parameters to output behavior rather than merely restating field docs.

Input schemas describe structure but not intent. Descriptions should explain non-obvious parameter relationships and valid value ranges.

Purpose5/5

Does the description clearly state what the tool does and how it differs from similar tools?

States a specific verb+resource: it computes what first home buyer grants and concessions are worth on a single purchase, breaking out grant eligibility and the stamp duty saving plus a total. It explicitly distinguishes itself from the ordinary stamp duty calculator by noting the duty exemption is derived 'via the same rules as /calculators/stamp-duty' and shown line-by-line, so an agent can tell the two apart without opening schemas.

Agents choose between tools based on descriptions. A clear purpose with a specific verb and resource helps agents select the right tool.

Usage Guidelines4/5

Does the description explain when to use this tool, when not to, or what alternatives exist?

The 'Who it's for' and 'Caveats' sections give clear context: Australian citizen/PR first home buyers who have never owned a home, and it clarifies it answers on price, property type and date rather than residence or income history. It names the related stamp-duty calculator but stops short of an explicit 'use X instead when Y' routing rule, which keeps it from a 5.

Agents often have multiple tools that could apply. Explicit usage guidance like "use X instead of Y when Z" prevents misuse.

All Microburbs Australian Property Data tools Inspect

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