Stamp duty receipts hit a record high earlier this year for buyers in the city, before NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Treasurer Dominic Perrottet unveiled plans to exempt first home buyers from paying the tax for properties up to $650,000, with discounts up to $800,000 from July 1.

“That will help when first home buyers go into the bank for their finance approval,” Mr Devlin said.

“It will go a lot further with their deposit in that money will go toward their deposit.”

Prospective buyers in Inverell are already holding their purchases until the new financial year, Mr Devlin said this week, but added that time would tell if the changes would inflate house prices.

"You don't know until it happens," he said. "It has happened before that that is the case. But given it is just the stamp duty price, it is probably more of an incentive."

The median house price in Inverell for a three bedroom home is around $230,000, according to Domain and realestate.com.au. Buyers would expect to pay around $6,500 in stamp duty, according to the state government's estimator. Local house prices have been steadily declining since an October 2016 peak at $270,000.

Domain data found three-bedroom homes in the local area were on the market for around 264 days before sold. 95 Domain listings have sold this year.

The market was divided almost equally between fully-owned properties, those paying mortgages, and renters.

Homeowners were, on average, more than 60 years-old.

There was also a low demand in the local area, according to realestate.com.au, which posted local properties listings were visited around 28 times per month compared to the state average, 790.

The concessions have been valued at almost $1 billion, but critics say the state is still lacking measures to boost construction of affordable homes for low and medium-income key workers such as nurses, teachers and police.

Calculations change from state to state but variously restricted concessions are available to first-home buyers in most states.

First-home buyers are usually offered a gain of some kind, but if this is an investment or second home, then stamp duty needs to be factored into the buyer’s budget, Domain recommends.