Cost of buying a house calculator

What the property buying costs calculator prices, and what it asks you for

There are two kinds of cost in a property purchase: the ones a government publishes on a scale, and the ones a business quotes you. This tool treats them differently on purpose.

Transfer duty is published, so the calculator works it out from the RevenueWA scale for your price, your buyer type and the kind of property you are buying. There is a foreign buyer toggle as well, because that surcharge is published too.

• Settlement agent or conveyancer fee, which you get quoted before you appoint one
• Building and pest inspection, priced by the inspector and the property
• Government registration fees, being the Landgate transfer and mortgage registration
• Lender fees, which depend entirely on the lender and the product

Those four fields default to zero and are labelled as figures to go and get quotes for. We will not print a number we cannot source, because a made-up fee that is $400 out is worse than an empty box that made you ring somebody.

Transfer duty, the one cost that is published

Transfer duty is the largest single cost after the deposit and it is charged on a sliding scale set by RevenueWA. On a $650,000 purchase at the general rate it is $24,890, which is about 3.83% of the price.

The full scale, band by band, sits on our stamp duty calculator, along with the concessional rate and how the part-of-$100 rule works. There is no point repeating it here. This page is about what duty does to your cash position rather than how it is worked out.

If a foreign person is acquiring an interest in the property, foreign buyers duty adds 7% of the dutiable value on top. On a $650,000 purchase that is another $45,500, and the toggle on the calculator adds it to the total.

Where first home buyers stand in WA

A first home buyer pays no transfer duty at all on a home worth up to $600,000. Between $600,001 and $800,000 duty is charged at $16.15 for every $100 above $600,000, and above $800,000 the concession is not available and the general rate applies in full.

Vacant land runs on its own thresholds: nothing up to $450,000, then $20.14 per $100 to a ceiling of $550,000. These figures took effect on 7 May 2026 and they apply everywhere in WA, with no separate regional scale.

The concession is worth the most at the bottom of the range and it fades fast. At $650,000 a first home buyer pays $8,075 against $24,890 on the general rate, a saving of $16,815. At $800,000 the concessional figure is $32,300 against $32,315.50, so the concession is worth $15.50 and effectively gone.

Choose your buyer type on the calculator and the right scale is applied. Whether you actually qualify is RevenueWA's decision, and prior property ownership anywhere in Australia catches more people than they expect.

The settlement costs checklist

Here is everything that can turn up between the offer and the keys. Not all of it applies to every purchase, but every line of it applies to somebody.

• Deposit paid on the contract, and the balance of your deposit at settlement
• Transfer duty on the dutiable value, plus foreign buyers duty where it applies
• Landgate transfer registration and mortgage registration fees
• Settlement agent or conveyancer fees and their disbursements
• Building and pest inspection, and a strata report where the property is strata titled
• Lender application, valuation and settlement fees, and lenders mortgage insurance under a 20% deposit
• Council rates, water rates and strata levies adjusted to the settlement date

The adjustments on that last line are the ones that catch people. If the seller has already paid the council rates or the strata levies for a period that runs past settlement, you reimburse them for the part of it you will own the property for.

It is not usually a large number, but it is a number nobody mentions until the settlement statement arrives, and it arrives late. Ask your settlement agent for an estimate of the adjustments as soon as you have a settlement date.

The costs that arrive after settlement, not at it

Settlement is not the last day you spend money on the purchase. The week either side of it has its own list, and it lands while your savings are at their lowest point of the whole exercise.

• Building insurance, commonly required from the day you sign rather than the day you settle, so check your contract
• Connection fees for power, water, gas and internet at the new address
• Removalists, or a truck hire and the favours that go with it
• Locks, a security check and whatever the inspection report told you to fix first
• The first council rates and water notices, and the first strata levy, in your name
• Repayments on the loan, starting sooner than most people plan for

None of this is in the calculator, because none of it is a settlement cost. Leave yourself a buffer beyond the number the tool gives you, and do not let the deposit take every dollar you have.

Cash at settlement, the loan, and your LVR

The output that matters is the first row: total cash needed at settlement. It is your deposit plus duty plus the four fees you entered, and the loan is simply the purchase price less the deposit.

On a $650,000 purchase with a $130,000 deposit, the loan is $520,000 and the loan-to-value ratio is 80%. The cash needed is $154,890 before you add a single one of the quoted fees, because the duty alone is $24,890 on top of the deposit.

Drop the deposit to $65,000 on the same purchase and the loan becomes $585,000 at a 90% loan-to-value ratio. You need far less cash on the day, but you are into lenders mortgage insurance territory and a larger balance to repay, which is a trade worth pricing properly before you make the offer.