Services / Mortgages / First Home Scheme
The First Home Scheme
The First Home Scheme (FHS) helps first-time buyers and other eligible home buyers with up to 30% of the market value of their newly built home in a private development anywhere in the Republic of Ireland.
What is the Scheme?
The First Home Scheme (FHS) is what’s known as a shared equity scheme. The State and participating banks pay up to 30% of the market value of your new home in return for equity interest in the home.
If you want, you can buy back the stake at any time, but you don’t have to.
Combine it with the Help to Buy Scheme
You can get up to 30% of the market value of your new property with the FHS.
This is reduced to 20% if you are also getting the Help to Buy Scheme. The minimum you can get is 2.5% of the property purchase price, or €10,000, whichever is higher.
Limits in Your AREa
Property Price Ceilings
The First Home Scheme allows you to purchase a newly built house or apartment in a private development. Property price ceilings per local authority area apply to both houses and apartments. In some local authority areas, the price ceiling for houses and apartments is different.
In order to qualify for the FHS, the purchase price of your property must be equal to or below the property price ceiling for the local authority area in which the property is located. These limits are different depending on where you buy and what type of property you purchase and the limits are linked to the median price for first-time buyers in each area.
They are reviewed regularly and changed if needed. The limits were reviewed in December 2023 and increased from 1 January 2024.
Example
How the scheme works in practice
The example below is based on a couple (first time borrowers) on a joint salary of €55,000, purchasing a home in a new development in the Monaghan area.
