Deciding to buy your first home
Deciding to buy your first home
Buying a property isn’t just a matter of going online on your phone and scrolling through, You will need to put lots of thought and research into it before you even get to that stage.
We must qualify our needs and our finances as a buyer by asking a few important questions :
1. Where to start if you want to buy a house
The most obvious place to start is to determine whether you can afford a mortgage. Before you even start looking for that dream home, sit down and carefully work through your finances to see just how much you can potentially spare to service a mortgage.
Think about your lifestyle preferences and keep in mind your personal circumstances, as well as others outside of your control, like current interest rates and property prices, which will change over time.
Some important considerations might be access to public transport and schools, parks and open spaces and recreational activities. Maybe you want access to certain restaurants or entertainment districts. Or is a backyard or well-established garden a must for you? Have these clear in your mind to make the house-hunting process a simpler one.
Must haves
A buying ‘must have’ is something you’re not willing to compromise on. It might be the number of bedrooms, to accommodate children, or a yard, if you have animals. It’s only truly a ‘must have’ if it’s a deal breaker.
Nice to haves
Everyone would love a pool, right? But unless you’re an Olympic hopeful, it would rarely be a must-have for a first-time buyer. Your list of ‘nice to haves’ is exactly that: things it would be great to have in a home but aren’t vital.
Compromises
Unless you have a bottomless pit of money, you’ll most likely have to compromise when you’re buying for the first time. Understanding what your ‘must haves’ and ‘nice to haves’ are will go a long way to helping you decide if a property is worth compromising for.
3. What can you afford?
Knowing what you can afford is a vital first step in your journey to being a first home buyer.
Some important aspects to keep in mind, are current interest rate levels, your job security, potential income growth, impacts of family changes such as having children, and what you’re willing to sacrifice if need be, to pay off a mortgage.
4. How to save for your first home
The important thing to remember when saving for your first home is to not just save blindly. Work out exactly what you need to aim for, so you can establish a savings strategy that can work for you.
Examine your loan options with a lender or mortgage broker. You may have the capacity to borrow with a 5% to 10% deposit if you can afford lender’s mortgage insurance (LMI).
Also keep in mind associated loan costs such as stamp duty, legal fees and loan set-up fees. You may also be eligible for a first home owners’ grant to help with these initial costs.
Disclaimer:- This topic is entirely written from personal expertise in the related field and does not imply nor suggest professional advise in any way, please do your own research prior to making any huge decision and only use this article/blog to further your knowledge about real estate purchasing.