Queensland had a very good "help to buy" scheme in the 1970s and 1980s. It was run by the Housing Department and the same rules applied as public rental housing - you were able to borrow up to a certain multiple of your income and paid it off at a quarter of your income. IIRC my income at the time was 32K and I could have got a loan of 70K. Actually only borrowed 43 which got me into a small suburban three bedder (brand new) in Morayfield.

To qualify you had to be in the same "class" as families with kids who were eligible for a health care card, in other words lower income but not necessarily poor.

The thing was that if you became unemployed you still only paid a quarter of you income, in the expectation that you would work again and then your payment would go up. A nice buffer and removed a lot of terror from many families.

The scheme had come in under the Bjelke Petersen govt. and was promptly scrapped when Labor got in

Edit: you only got one bite at the cherry, but it helped a lot of people I know to get on the ladder. Like my ex who sold the house from under me and built a nice house on acreage with her new hubby Story of my life, God bless them.

"So if you add the average mortgage to the average deposit (23%), you get $374,000 being the average 'Detached house' price for a first home buyer."

Not anywhere in the Sydney metropolitan region it isn't!!!! The house market is broken. Proven by the allowance of First Time Buyers to use the equity of their parents or family friends house as a guarantee for the lack of deposit. You can now get a 100% mortgage using that guarentee....I mean, who on earth can seriously 'save' 82k??????