Queensland lifted the first home concession threshold on transfer duty from $500,000 to $700,000 this month, with the concession phasing out up to $800,000. In a market where the median house value crossed $870,000 last year, that's not a symbolic gesture. It's closing a gap that had genuinely stopped making sense.
The old threshold was set for a market that no longer exists. A first home buyer looking at a median-priced property was getting essentially no benefit from a concession designed years earlier, back when $500,000 actually covered a reasonable purchase.
Policy catching up to price growth, rather than staying frozen while the market moves past it, is the kind of change that's easy to miss in the news cycle but genuinely changes outcomes for the buyers it's aimed at.