The First Home Owners Boost - which puts up to $26,000 in home buyers? pockets depending on their circumstances - will also be extended until June 2012 at a cost of $95 million.
Struggling first home buyers will get a 20 per cent cut in stamp duty from July, with further cuts up to 50 per cent phased in by September 2014. In the first year, this will put $3,274 into the average buyer?s pocket spending $400,000 on a new home.
But the budget papers reveal stamp duty revenue will drop by 3.5 per cent next financial year to $3.7 billion, the result of fewer people buying homes in a sluggish property market.
Property taxes account for more than a third of Victoria?s tax income, contributing nearly $5.6 billion to the state?s coffers last financial year.