The 101 on how to Buy a Home
Every day people decide to buy property, and for lots of different reasons. Whether it’s your first home, your forever home, an investment property or a holiday home, the process is fairly similar – find a property, make an offer, buy the home – but here’s the bits in-between that sometimes get a bit confusing:
1. Get your finances in order. Speak to your bank or a mortgage broker. Most mortgage brokers will suggest you have 3-6 months of consistent saving (with no credit card spending) before applying for finance. So now is the time to pay off that store card, cancel the credit card, and really consciously think about the purchases you make for the next few months.
2. First Home buyers are entitled to government grants, and there have been recent changes in Superannuation to enable purchasers to use their super to purchase houses too.
3. Once you have formal finance approval, you can start the property hunt! Get out there & see everything you can. Be honest & build rapport with Agents in the area that you’re looking – they may have an off-market opportunity for you.
4. When you’ve found ‘the one’ it’s time to make an offer to purchase. Do your own due diligence on the property, and then make an offer. Our suggestions are;
• You can generally gauge interest in a home by the amount of people at the first open home, so if there were other parties at the Open Home that seemed interested, act quick. Your offer should be in writing, and include any conditions (like settlement time, etc).
• Even though the Agent is working for the Vendor and their job is to sell the property for the highest price, their job is also to SELL THE PROPERTY. Be honest in your negotiations, don’t try to outwit the Agent, and give them every chance to negotiate a deal between yourself & the purchaser.
• Your first offer is where you see value in the property, and often the vendor sees value at a higher figure, so will either knock back your offer (if they feel its too low), or counter your offer with another figure. At this point you can generally tell if you will own the property.
• After the sale price & terms have been negotiated & agreed, you will sign a contract and pay 0.25% of the sale price into the Agents Trust Account. The Vendor will sign the other contract, and then contracts will be ‘exchanged’ (The Vendor signed contract will go to the Purchasers legal representative, and the Purchaser signed contract will go to the Vendors legal representative). At this point you will enter into a ‘cooling off period’, giving your legal representative time to do necessary searches, and you time for unconditional finance approval.
• NOTE: If it’s an Auction property, see if you can negotiate prior. Don’t forget an Auction sale is Unconditional, so you’ll need to have your solicitor or conveyancer look over the contract beforehand, and have access to the full 5% or 10% deposit when signing contracts.
• At the end of the cooling off period, you’ll pay the balance of the deposit to the Agents Trust Account, and the property will be SOLD! Time for that #soldselfie
5. Time to read our ‘Moving Checklist’.
Good luck, happy House Hunting, and don’t forget to reach out to your favourite Guardian Realty Agent so they can help you on your search!
Have you read: The Selling Process, The Countdown to Moving Day, The Auction Process?