This is going to be a two part post as it has some very detailed telling to our house buying experience.
When we decided to buy a house there were so many questions that popped into our minds. Although there were friends around who did give their views and guidelines the whole experience can be daunting, especially when you do not have your own family around. We wished we could sit down with someone, apart from the mortgage agent, and just pour out our questions. The above mentioned friends did try to help but somehow you can never discuss the financial part with them. Through the whole experience I thought to myself that when our experience was over I was going to put it down so somebody out there, who is in our situation and is searching for some guidelines can read this and maybe, just maybe it might help them out a little bit.
We decided to buy our home in 2014 and with that desire came a bunch of questions like
1. Which suburb/ area are we wanting to move to?
2. How much are we willing to invest?
3. Based on our budget, how much can we borrow?
4. Whats the locality like and are there good schools around?
5. What is the distance to work and is there public transport available?
Do those questions sound familiar?? I am sure it does to many of you who have been in the rat race to buy a home and if you are done with the race I am also very sure you heaved a sigh of relief when you put the deposit down and signed the sale document. We heaved ours six months ago but our moving in took a while as we faced an unexpected situation. I am going to start of by telling you how we went about with the planning, buying and finish of with the unexpected situation.
We started off by making a list of suburbs that was not too far away from where we lived previously, it was based on schools and distance to work/ church. Once we had a reasonable number we asked friends who have been living here in Sydney what they thought about a suburb. I must also add, you need to do your own homework on every suburb, as opinions can vary.
Next comes the money matter! Work out how much you can invest based on your salary. When I say invest it brings out the word MORTGAGE. Before meeting a mortgage agent, do a search on the different banks' lending rate and do your math on the repayment each month, it does not need to be exact. Based on this value, you can further narrow down on your list of suburbs. Once you work that out, speak to an agent who can take you to your next step of getting a mortgage approved. I must warn you that these guys might get you to borrow more than what you are capable of, so keep a calm head when you approach them. We were lucky to get someone who came recommended and did his job really well.
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| This is what your search would normally look like starting from the bottom left and going anti clockwise. You enter your specifications, next it shows the houses for sale on the map and third you choose a house to view details. |
When we met our agent he gave us two options 1. Refinance our apartment and use the equity as down payment for a new loan or 2.Sell the apartment and use the profit on sale as down payment for a new loan. We were a bit confused as we were not sure if we wanted two loans or just have one and enjoy the house we buy. To put the long story short, we decided to refinance our previous loan and use the equity as down payment for a new loan. Once the whole process was complete we were approved for a loan to buy a house.
It is always better to have an approved loan to buy a house 'cause when you go for an 'Open Day' you can tell the sales agent that you have one and it increases your chances to buy that house if you like it.
Based on the loan and the savings you are putting in, I must also add that we had our parents backing us up, short list your suburbs list further and make sure you keep an eye out for houses that come up for sale in the suburbs of your choice. We checked every other day and went for every 'Open Day' if we liked the house and spoke to the sales agent just to get an idea about how much the owners were expecting and what the surroundings were.
The search that had started off mid 2014 went well into 2015. I remember one night, after the little bub had fallen asleep, when i was checking for houses for sale, seeing two houses that seemed to our liking, we decided to see both. Walking into the first house, we fell completely in love with it, it had everything I wanted and everything my husband wanted, but we were not sure if it would be ours as the number of people who came to view the house were many. The second house was alright and was way over what it was worth!
Coming back to the first house that we viewed, before we left the property we spoke to the sales agent who said the dealings were to be done by a message and if we were to get the property they would let us know. But the sale had a few conditions 1. The owners needed a few months to move out as they were building their new home 2. The deposit will be taken and name change happens, but the entire sale happens only after two months 3.For the remaining months they stay till the date of vacating, they pay rent at the value they choose. We were not sure again as to whether we should agree to these terms and also the number of people who came to view the property were many- remember I said it is a rat race! But we loved the property so much and both, my husband and I, could imagine living there, so we decided to go ahead to message in our offer.
The viewing took place on a Saturday and we messaged the agent that evening who replied saying there were offers more than ours. At this point we decided to increase our investment value, we could do this only because we had our parents backing us up with the extra, we replied with the increased offer and also said we agreed to the owners agreement. Sunday was a pretty quiet day with us biting our fingers nails. Come Monday morning, I told my husband if it was meant to be ours it would and he left to work. About an hour later I get a call from him sounding all exited saying "It's Ours!!!!" I cannot describe the happiness that rushed through!
Note: You can read the continuation here
The search that had started off mid 2014 went well into 2015. I remember one night, after the little bub had fallen asleep, when i was checking for houses for sale, seeing two houses that seemed to our liking, we decided to see both. Walking into the first house, we fell completely in love with it, it had everything I wanted and everything my husband wanted, but we were not sure if it would be ours as the number of people who came to view the house were many. The second house was alright and was way over what it was worth!
Coming back to the first house that we viewed, before we left the property we spoke to the sales agent who said the dealings were to be done by a message and if we were to get the property they would let us know. But the sale had a few conditions 1. The owners needed a few months to move out as they were building their new home 2. The deposit will be taken and name change happens, but the entire sale happens only after two months 3.For the remaining months they stay till the date of vacating, they pay rent at the value they choose. We were not sure again as to whether we should agree to these terms and also the number of people who came to view the property were many- remember I said it is a rat race! But we loved the property so much and both, my husband and I, could imagine living there, so we decided to go ahead to message in our offer.
The viewing took place on a Saturday and we messaged the agent that evening who replied saying there were offers more than ours. At this point we decided to increase our investment value, we could do this only because we had our parents backing us up with the extra, we replied with the increased offer and also said we agreed to the owners agreement. Sunday was a pretty quiet day with us biting our fingers nails. Come Monday morning, I told my husband if it was meant to be ours it would and he left to work. About an hour later I get a call from him sounding all exited saying "It's Ours!!!!" I cannot describe the happiness that rushed through!
Note: You can read the continuation here
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