Data from Housing<\/a> Australia, prepared for Senate estimates and seen by Guardian Australia, shows the scheme backed 15,924 single-borrower loans and 23,790 joint loans from 1 October, when the income cap was removed, to 30 April.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n The 39,704 government-backed loans include 13,979 over the scrapped income caps: 6,812 single borrowers with incomes over $125,000 and 7,167 joint borrowers earning over $200,000.<\/p>\n At the upper end, nearly 1,000 single Australians earning $200,000 and above, and 1,251 couples earning a combined $275,000 or more, enjoyed a government-backed 5% deposit.<\/p>\n Higher earners are swarming the 5% deposit scheme<\/a><\/p>\n Amy Auster, the chief executive of Policy Institute Australia, said the removal of caps had meant support flowed to people in better financial positions.<\/p>\n \u201cIt always matters because \u2026 government support traditionally goes to the people who need it the most,\u201d Auster said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s been an ongoing expansion of efforts to financially support \u2026 first home buyers, and I understand why, but in the end it hasn\u2019t solved the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | When needed<\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Saul Eslake, an independent economist, said the scheme had likely been used by people who would have bought homes anyway while inflating their debt.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way it was expanded by Albanese goes to the heart of why we have the housing problems that we have,\u201d Eslake said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhenever governments do things that allow people to spend more on housing than they would have otherwise, they end up spending more on housing.\u201d<\/p>\n A borrower with $50,000 in savings, if required to make a 20% deposit, would only have been able to borrow $200,000. Under the 5% deposit scheme, they would be able to borrow $1m.<\/p>\n Prices have soared<\/a> since the expansion of the scheme. Labor lifted the price caps by hundreds of thousands of dollars to include homes below $1.5m in NSW cities, $1m for south-east Queensland, $950,000 for Melbourne and Geelong, $850,000 for Perth, $900,000 for Adelaide and $700,000 for Hobart, with varying levels in the regions.<\/p>\n Homes under those levels saw slower price rises than homes above those levels in early 2025, but rose much faster once the scheme was expanded, Cotality data shows.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2998.jpg\")
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