Rayson L.Home Buying Guide
How do you buy your first home in Melbourne Australia?
Buying your first home is an exciting phase in your life. After decades of staying with parents and renting, you can finally look forward to staying in a place called "My Home". It is exciting, but it can also be very daunting, especially if it is going to be your first home.
Buying a property used to be as simple as looking through the listings, attending the open for inspections, and making an offer for the property. It was simple.
But thanks to modern day marketing, it is unfortunately full of complexities now. Given that it is possibly the single largest commitment you make in your life, do it wrong, and it will become your biggest liability in life.
As Melbourne based Buyers Advocates (Buyers Agents), our buyers agents have been buying properties for over 20 years. Our experience working with our home buying clients shows that many home buyers are not properly prepared to prevent themselves from buying a lemon or a dud property.
While it is usually not the home buyers fault for being ill prepared, some buyers had unfortunately believed Dr Google and Prof Facebook are fantastic sources of information. Many believed they had instantly become property experts simply by googling for answers and crowd sourcing advice from online communities. You would not believe the hard time we have, trying to correct some of our client's misinformation.
Every home buyer should know, the whole real estate buying process is stacked against the typical buyer. A typical property seller has a trained selling agent protecting and working for them, while a typical property buyer are usually left to their own devices. Buyers are usually left to deal with an experienced professional who had been trained to extract every cent from them.
In this article, we have compiled a step by step guide to owning your own home. We will also give you some facts which you must know, and some buying advice on how you can avoid problems later. As most people do not buy more than 3 properties in their lifetime, these mistakes are applicable to both first home buyers and home buyers as well.
5 Top 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 challenges home buyers go through.
1. Get your finances ready
Find out how much cash you have to pay for the property. This is the cash you intend to use for the deposit to your property. If these cash is not already sitting idle in your bank account, find out the lead time to get your cash ready, and start to consolidate these funds and bring them into your bank account. Get this ready, so you can make your offer, once you find the right property you want. In a buyers market, speed is critical.
Also, find out the various grants and loans schemes which are applicable to you. Some of these grants are available upfront, while some are available during other phases of your ownership journey. Some of these grants and loan schemes are:
If you are a first home buyer, you might be eligible for the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme (FHLDS).
First home buyers might also be eligible for the First Home Owners Grant (FHOG)
Some single parent home buyers may be eligible for the Family Home Guarantee Scheme
2. Understand your borrowing power or serviceability
This is how much a lender or a bank will lend you. Your assets, income, liabilities and expense patterns will determine how much lenders will lend you. This borrowing power, 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 power. 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 what you want in your property
Depending on why you are buying a property, you should now consider what your needs and wants and priorities are.
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 though. This is a balancing act. Know what you need vs what you want vs what is available for your budget vs what is available in the market.
As part of our home buying service, we help our clients define your needs and wants in 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
At this step, you will now determine your future plans for your property. What are you plans for this property?
What do you intend 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 am 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, this is also very often the most stressful, most difficult, and most demoralising phase of your property purchase journey.
Buyers who engage our services are often find themselves being outbidded and outsmarted by other property buyers. They always seems to be at least a few steps behind other buyers. They are demoralised and stressed with the whole property search process.
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, our property buying concierge service can help you get what you want in less than half the time. Usually under 2 months, to be exact*. Have a look at our reasonably priced home buying plans.
Still not sure? Have a chat with us. Our home buying service have been helping first home buyers get into the property market, and we might be able to help you buy for home. Let's discuss if we are able to help you. Book in your free consultation.