Saving for your first home can seem like a never ending struggle. Once you have your deposit, you then need to get pre-approval on your loan so you know how much the banks are willing to lend you. Then you need to find the house you want to buy – and successfully buy it. It’s a lot to achieve, so let me break it down for you:
Saving the deposit. This just has to be done. It’s hard, it’s boring, it’s annoying, but there’s no way around it. There are things that will help – like the First Home Super Saver Scheme that allows you to save money pre-tax in your super account. You can also ask your parents for a loan, team up with your partner or a mate to pool your deposit and buy together, or you can just save. Setting goals and creating a budget will help with this. So just do it. Get it done!
Pre-approval for your home loan. This is the first step in getting a home loan. We gather all the necessary information from you and then submit it to the lender that best suits your needs and circumstances. They come back with conditional approval and the amount that they are willing to lend you based on the information that’s been provided to them. Once you have that information, you can start looking for a house and confidently make offers.
Buying that house. This the big one – the exciting one because it’s where your dreams and plans become reality. What do you buy? Where do you buy? How do you decide how much to offer? What happens if you are gazumped? Do you engage a buyer’s agent to help you? My tip is to write a list of everything that’s important to you – from the number of bedrooms to what it needs to be close to. When you start looking at places, take your list and start ticking things off. You don’t have to stick to the list, but it’s a great starting point. Once you’ve found the property you want, you then have to make it yours. Word of warning: keep your head when it comes to bidding at auction or making offers. It’s sometimes hard to contain the excitement if you’ve fallen in love with the property.
The professionals. While you’re doing all that house hunting and negotiating, you also need to have a conveyancer ready to go to look over the contract and arrange exchange, your mortgage broker ready to finalise your loan, your building and pest inspector ready to inspect the property. Note: We always recommend to engage an independent, licensed building inspector rather than relying on the report offered by the vendor/agent. You want that inspection to be independent and thorough if you’re putting your hard earned money into it! If you’re buying a house, you’ll also need to arrange insurance prior to settlement as the lender will need to know that it’s insured. (Building insurance is covered by strata if you’re buying a strata titled apartment.)
You relax and we take over. Once you’ve bought the house and exchanged contracts, we take over. We’ll keep in touch with the real estate agent, your conveyancer and your lender. We’ll keep the paperwork progressing and keep you informed along the way. All you have to do is answer any questions we have along the way and get ready to move in!
We can help you every step of the way – from creating your savings plan, to assessing your borrowing capacity and applying for pre-approval – right through to settlement.
The Brisbane real estate market is taking off again, after a slow down during the lead up to the election. Prices are holding up and demand is increasing.
Please get in touch if we can help you make your home ownership dreams a reality.
Keep saving and keep monitoring your spending!
Caroline Jean-Baptiste
Mortgage Choice
Fortitude Valley
