Pathways to owning your home in your community

On this page

Owning a home in your community

If you live in social housing, you may be able to buy the home you’re living in and become a homeowner in your community.

To do this, you can apply to the trustee for a lease to buy the house. If the trustee decides they will give you the lease, they’ll ask the Department of Housing and Public Works for approval to sell the house. If approval is given, you can then buy the house.

We’re working with local councils, trustees and Traditional Owner groups to make home ownership available, achievable and sustainable in remote and discrete communities.

How you may become a homeowner

There are 2 main ways you may be able to own a home:

If you live on Palm Island, you may also be eligible to apply for the Palm Island Rent-to-Buy Home Ownership Scheme.

99-year home ownership lease

If you live on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communal lands, you can apply for a 99-year home ownership lease.

As the leaseholder (homeowner), this gives you exclusive use of the land and ownership of any home on that land. However, the underlying ownership of the land remains held in trust by the trustee for the benefit of the community.

When the granting of a 99-year home ownership lease is approved and you have been presented with an Agreement to Lease (like a property sales contract), you may want approval for a loan to:

  • buy the existing home
  • build a new home if the land is vacant.

As part of the 99-year home ownership lease process:

  1. The local trustees and the Department of Housing and Public Works agree on a sale price for the sale of social housing homes within their respective communities.
  2. The trustees use the money from the sale to reinvest back into housing services for their community.

We’ve worked with the trustees in these communities to develop and agree on sale prices:

  • Kowanyama
  • Lockhart River
  • Mapoon
  • Napranum
  • Northern Peninsula Area
  • Palm Island
  • Torres Strait (excluding Badu and Mer Islands)
  • Woorabinda
  • Yarrabah.

The sale price must be set and agreed upon for your community before you can buy your social housing home. If your community isn’t on the list, don’t worry. We’re still working with other communities to make this possible and you can speak with the Remote Home Ownership team to find out more about the process.

To find out the sales prices for your community, you can ask your local trustee.

More information about home ownership leases is available.

Palm Island Rent-to-Buy Home Ownership Scheme

If you’re a social housing tenant living on Palm Island, you may be able to buy your home through the Palm Island Rent-to-Buy Home Ownership Scheme.

The scheme will be available to 10 households at first and may expand for more households in the future.

How it works

You can apply to buy your council-owned home by entering into a rent-to-buy agreement with the Palm Island Aboriginal Shire Council as the trustee.

If you’re part of the Rent-to-Buy Scheme, you’ll make payments to the Palm Island Aboriginal Shire Council that are the same as the maximum standard rent for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander housing stock on Palm Island (based on the number of bedrooms in your home). These payments will go towards paying off the cost of your home for approximately 10 years.

Once you’ve completed the payment plan, a 99-year home ownership lease will be registered, and ownership of the home will be transferred to you.

You may be eligible to join the Rent-to-Buy Scheme if you:

  • are a social housing tenant living in a detached, stand-alone house on Palm Island (not a unit, duplex or townhouse)
  • are an Aboriginal person, or the spouse or former spouse of an Aboriginal person (living or deceased)
  • have a historical and ongoing connection to Palm Island, Manbarra, or the Bwgcolman peoples
  • can show that you’re able to make required payments for the scheme, have a positive rental history, and don’t have any unpaid rent.

For more information, you can contact the Palm Island Aboriginal Shire Council.

You can also contact us if you’re interested in buying your home on Palm Island through an up-front purchase (for example, using cash or bank loan), or if you’re a First Nations person living in another location and want to buy your home.

Getting advice

To learn more about becoming a homeowner in a remote or discrete community, contact:

More information

Last updated:
10 July 2026