REGIONAL first homebuyers will soon be able to grab a new payment as the federal government spruiks a scheme it hopes will avoid criticisms of the past.
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Member for Bendigo Lisa Chesters has talked up the new regional first-home buyer guarantee set to arrive on Saturday.
"Accessing the market is really difficult at the moment," she said.
The scheme will guarantee 10,000 eligible first-home buyers as much as 15 per cent of the cost of purchase.
The government hopes it will allow people who make a five per cent deposit to avoid paying mortgage insurance.
Some critics say past first-home buyer schemes have not reduced prices and encourage sellers to charge more.
Ms Chesters said the government had been mindful of those concerns.
"What we hear from the real estate agents is that it's not until you've bid for the property would they even know [you were a first-home buyer]," she said.
The guarantee is unlikely to rein in spiralling house and rental prices across Bendigo, Ms Chesters said.
But it would at least make it easier for first-home buyers to save a sufficient deposit, she said..
"This is one of the issues young people raise with me every time I go out to high schools these days," Ms Chesters said.
"When I ask what they want from the future they say they want to be able to buy their own home. This is the first generation of people under 30 saying they don't know if they ever will."
The government is also turning its attention to other problems with housing supplies that have fueled the current affordability crisis, Ms Chesters said.
They include new social and affordable housing and a host of other programs helping people buy homes.
Housing minister Julie Collins met recently with state counterparts and discussed ways to raise the amount of land available for new Australian homes.
"It was the first meeting in five years of housing ministers," Ms Chesters said.
The government also wants to bring local governments into those conversations too, she said.
Some land shortages have been fuelled by emergency pandemic spending, when governments stepped in to prop the building industry, Ms Chesters said.
That was one reason why the incoming guarantee had been extended to those wanting to buy existing properties, she said.
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