Couples getting two FHOG?

Hi All,

I have a question about how to structure a house purchase,

Basically my partner and I have decided we want to purchase our first home. We are looking around the area for something thats about 180,000-200,000.

If I plug in my details into a borrowing calculator, net income of $2438 a month, monthly car repayments of $150, based on 7.07% loan @ 30year term, it says I can borrow $145,000, which is a bit less than what we need.

If I plug in my partners details and mine it estimates we can borrow $417,000 (but we only need about $180,000 if that).

So thats all well and good but my question relates to the First Home Owners Grant, as a couple if we buy a house and apply for it together we only get one $7,000 grant, would it be worth trying to buy the house in just one of our names, or is there no way the bank would lend that money to just one of us?

The reason I ask is because we are also thinking sometime in approx the next 5 years we may plan to buy an investment property, and a second FHOG would certainly give us a huge kickstart into an investment not only taking 7grand off the purchase price but the obvious savings in stamp duty etc (and maybe live in it for 6 months and reno it to be eligible for a FHOG). The downside of this is that the investment also, would have to be completely in one persons name (the one who didnt buy ‘our house’.)

Is this a feasible idea to do or are we better off just saying OK the first home owners grant is to get us our first home and just do it as a joint purchase and get the one grant and thats it from the government?

If the bank wasn’t willing to lend the full purchase price to just me if it was only going to be in my name, I could get my father to be a guarantor or even produce a large deposit or have the loan offset by other funds that my father may be willing to lend me) or even with that are they unlikely to lend to me based on my income and loan servicability?

Is this a dangerous thing to do in the unlikely event of a splitup (we are getting married soon though) or even if our family home was in just one of our names would the other end up being entitled to 50% share of it anyway? Does the FHOG make you ineligible if your spouse owned/owns a property prior to getting married or does it not take that into consideration?

Any ideas on what other people in similar situations have done in this respect would be appreciated, I think it would be a common thing to happen to couples.

Thanks alot for your replies.[biggrin]