First Home Buyer Tips from a Melbourne Buyers Agent - Concierge
top of page

First Home Buyers Tips

How do you get ahead in the competitive world of property buying? 

Here are some top First Home Buying tips for Melbourne First Home Buyers. 

From Property Buying Professionals.

🏡 Planning to buy your first home?
Our Buyers Advocates have compiled this step-by-step Hot Property Buying Guide for you.

Opportunity for First Home Buyers Is Here - And It Won't Last

"Be fearful when others are greedy, be greedy when others are fearful" - Warren Buffett.

​

The Pandemic Year 2020 was the best time to buy your property.  Unfortunately, many home buyers panicked and did not take up the challenge.  In the 2 years following the record low interest rates and pandemic money splash, prices rose.  It was not uncommon to see property prices grew between 50% to 100% in those 2 years.  Buyers who had held back regretted, and lost big time!  They would now have to pay between 50-100% more to buy the same house, post pandemic.

​

A series of rate rise post pandemic quickly put a stop to rising house prices.  This caused an almost immediate slow down in demand, and prices weakened by an average o 10% in Melbourne.  Now, this softening of prices is not evenly distributed across all suburbs.  It is not uncommon to see prices in blue-chip suburbs had held up well.  Not only had they not fallen, they had continued their rise, albeit, at a slower pace. 

​

So, with the softening of prices, comes the good news.  It is, in some place, a buyers market.  If you are planning to buy your home or investment property, get in now.  Prices had already risen is some better suburbs, and this rise is expected to continue well into 2025 easily.

​

The good news is, in addition to the First Home Owners Grant (FHOG), some economic support measures put in place since the pandemic is still available:

  1. First Home Owners Grant (FHOG) - a $10,000 grant for eligible first home buyers of new homes valued up to $750,000.  The home must not have been previously sold or occupied.

  2. Victorian Homebuyer Fund - For buyers with a min of 5% deposit and looking to get into the property market, the Victorian state government may co-own up to 25% of the property with you.  Eligibility criterias and conditions applies.  More info here.

  3. Other Concessions and Exemptions - Eligible First Home Buyers may be eligible for, and receive, more than one exemption, concession or reduction from stamp duty for your property.  In Victoria, these include:

    1. First-home buyer duty exemption or concession – a one-off duty exemption for a principal place of residence (PPR) valued up to $600,000, or a concession for a PPR with a dutiable value from $600,001 to $750,000. This duty exemption or concession is separate from the First Home Owner Grant. The grant is a payment made to you, whereas the first home buyer duty exemption and concession is a reduction in the amount of land transfer duty you pay. 
      First-home buyer reduction – a one-off duty reduction of up to 50% for a PPR valued up to $600,000 if you entered into your contract before 1 July 2017.

    2. Off-the-plan concession – a duty concession for an off-the-plan property, either as a land and building package, or as a refurbished lot.

    3. Pensioner concession – a one-off duty exemption or concession for a new or established home valued up to $750,000.
      Principal place of residence (PPR) concession – a duty concession for when a property you buy, valued up to $550,000, is intended as your primary home.

    4. First-home owner with family exemption or concession – a one-off duty exemption or concession for properties valued at $200,000 or less.

    5. Young farmer’s exemption or concession – a one-off duty exemption/concession for young farmers buying their first farmland property.

 

These unprecedented support programs are favourable to property buying, but they will not last forever.  Some more attractive programs introduced during the pandemic, such as the homebuilder fund, etc,  had been discontinued.  If you are in the market, you should grab this opportunity while they are still available.  It may never be repeated again.

​

If you are planning to buy your house, buy NOW, before you get more buyers competing for the limited stock when the borders reopen.

​

More info on the support programs

5 Tips for the First Home Buyer

As buyers agents, our First Home Buying service has helped many first home buyers buy their first homes fast and confidently.  We've seen their pain points, we've seen what they struggle with, and we've compiled 5 top tips to help first home buyers avoid the issues other home buyers faced.

​

Your step by step guide to buying your first home:

  1. Get your finances ready.  Find out how your pool of funds and how much you can afford to pay for the property.

  2. Understand your borrowing capacity.

    • This is how much a lender or a bank will lend you.  Lenders will use your assets, income, liabilities and expense patterns will determine how much  they will lend you.

    • This borrowing capacity, and the cash deposit you have, will determine the price range you should be looking for.

    • Talk to us if you do not know your borrowing capacity.  We can help you understand your budget, and put you in touch with our network of trusted mortgage brokers who can find a suitable mortgage for your first home.

  3. Determine the type of properties and the features that are important to you.

    • Do you want a house that is easy to maintain?  Big property?  Number of rooms, bathrooms, toilets, car spaces? Pool? Big backyard?

    • Near amenities, shops?  Near schools?  Near public transport?  Tree change?  Sea Change?

    • There are over 20-30 questions you can ask.  The more precise you are, the easier it is to shortlist your property.  But be careful.  It is a balancing act between what you need vs what you want vs what is available for your budget vs what is available in the market.

    • Our first home buying service can help you define your property.  We have a list of over 80 questions which we ask our clients, to get them to start thinking of their properties.  Feel free to have a chat with us, if you need assistance.  It's FREE, afterall.

  4. Your plans for the property.

    • What do you want to do with your property?  ​​

    • How long do you intend to stay in it? 

    • What do you intend to do after that?  When do you intend to do that?

    • Do you intend to turn it into an investment property?

    • Acquire a second or third or more properties in x number of years?

  5. Start searching 😜

    • Now that you know what you want, and what to look for, start searching.

    • This is the most critical and most time consuming step.

    • You'll be surprised, but this is also very often the most stressful, most difficult, and most demoralising phase of your property purchase journey.  We live in a modern world where we need 25 hours a day, 8 days a week; and we have 101 urgent things to catch up and another 101 reasons not to go through the real estate listings and not to go for that property inspection.

    • This is why many people simply stop at step 4. Or did not do enough of step 5.

    • If you are stuck at steps 4 or 5, consider outsourcing these to a home buying service.  Our property buying concierge service helps you get what you want in less than half the time.  Usually under 2 months, to be exact*.

​​

Still too confusing?  Too difficult?  We have helped many first home buyers get into their first homes.  Let's discuss if we are able to help you.  Book in your free consultation.

Why Home Buyers Should Consider Using a Buyer's Agent

A typical home buyer takes 6-12 months to buy their home.  And it can take up to twice as long, for the first home buyer?  Yes, that is almost 2 years of stressful house hunting, and 2 years of disappointments.  You will also be missing out on 2 years worth of capital growth.  Reports have shown that that means it will cost you more than $133k or more, for each year delayed!  Here's why.

​

And we have a true story of 2 property buyers.  They were friends who started house buying together.  One used a buyer's agent, while the other chose to DIY.  One saved over $200k.  Guess which one.  Read here.

​

How fast you buy your property, is critical towards successful home ownership.  Our buyer's advocate service has been helping first home buyers buy their first homes in under 3 months.  Here are some feedback and reviews from our client:​

  • "We should have used a buyer's agent earlier."

  • "It's money well spent."

  • "Best service and reasonably priced."

  • "The cost of the professional property buying service more than paid for the stress and effort we saved."

​

More reviews and testimonials here.​

Read some of our success stories here.

​

Imagine what you can do with your very own property coach, property mentor and property concierge.  The wealth of insider information you have at your disposal, is priceless, when you use a property buying service of a genuine buyer's advocate. 

We do your homework with you.  We do the dirty work for you.  We manage the entire buying process to ensure it is as smooth as possible.  We find and shortlist properties for you, based on your criteria, manage the entire purchase, from auctions / negotiations, to inspections, conveyancing, mortgage and keys collections.  We comb through the top Melbourne suburbs, and the best Melbourne suburbs within your budget, to search, analyse and identify the best properties that meet your requirements.

​​

It only cost you a very low buyers agent fee to engage a buyer's agent, but studies have shown that a buyer's agent can more than half your property search time and save you over $133,000 on average.  That is a saving of around 16%! 

Would you want to save 16%?  Smart property buyers would, and have benefited from it.

​​

Our Hot Property Buying Offer for You

Not convinced yet?  We are eager to help first home buyers like you.  We love to see the smiles when we hand the keys over to first home buyers so much, that we have put together a deal for first home buyers: 

​​

1. Book in your FREE consultation. Let us help you in defining your ideal property.  We will also put together your property plan and discuss the entire buying process.  It's our complimentary service to help you understand what home buyers need to know.

​​

2. Receive a special 10% discount off our comprehensive buyer agent package, just for Melbourne First Home Buyers like you.

​​

3. If you prefer, select from one of our hand-picked, specially selected NO-FEE house and land deals designed for First Home Buyers, and you could be saving up to $10,000 off the purchase price, on top of your First Home Owners Grant!  Yes, you'll receive your $10,000 (or $20,000) FHOG, and a further (up to) $10,000 discount on the purchase price.  That's up to $20,000 worth of savings.  Some properties comes with rental guarantees as well!

​​

All you need to do now is to get a free Quote and book in your FREE consultation!  It is easy.

More Tips for First Home Buyers:

​

And we have an offer for First Home Buyers!

​

Check out our Property Deals page for great buying opportunities.

First Home Buyer Tips: Features
bottom of page