Buying a property might seem like an easy experience at first thought, however often when we speak to a lot of people who have struggled to find a property, that are left frustrated and defeated, we can quickly identify some key steps that they have either missed or done incorrectly that have made their buying journey a lot more difficult that what it needs to be. Here are some methodical and key steps that all buyers can follow to help them avoid frustration and enjoy the process of buying a property.
Before you start your property discovery, without a doubt you must start by researching and understanding where your money is coming from. If you are borrowing from the bank, then understand what your borrowing capacity is as this is the most common way to buy a property in Australia. Cash buyers have it a little bit easier because you know the amount you are prepared to spend with what is in your bank account. There are some other important costs you must find out such as stamp duty, moving costs, settlement agent fees and even potential additions to the property once you buy, as the last thing you want to do is be caught off guard with costs you were not aware of. Once you have figured out what your limit is, then it makes the next step a lot easier and also makes it realistic as there is no point looking at properties that you simply can’t afford.
This may be a list that changes based on what product you ideally would like to buy, ranging from a 1-bedroom apartment to a multimillion-dollar home. Try to keep it to 5 at any one given time because otherwise you risk confusion based on such price differential between suburbs and exhaustion because you are covering so much distance to view properties, which makes it tough to view enough of a variety. If there is not a property you can afford in that suburb, then either make the decision to wait and keep it on the list or choose another suburb and drop 1 off but you can easily determine this by doing your research on suburb median prices or talking to the local experts about if your ideal property fits within your budget for a particular suburb.
We understand it’s not always ideal to receive lots of emails but it is crucial that you either jump on a few newsletters because often they have upcoming listings that you can enquire about ahead of the market which allows you do some preliminary research or go for a drive past so that when it comes time to view that particular property then you are already a lot further progressed than the open market. An alternative for you if you don’t like the newsletters is for you to also check in once a week with an agent to see what they have appraised or listed. Again, we recommend you pick your top 3 suburbs for this particular exercise as you don’t want to have too much on your plate at any given time.
It might seem funny to most that we have to suggest this, however since photos, videos, virtual tours, floor plans are all getting very high quality you must be careful to not make the entirety of your decision based on online media (where possible) as nothing will beat the human eye in understanding what a property’s true condition is or the feeling it gives you. If you find yourself in a situation where you cannot physically inspect then we would recommend you have a family member or friend inspect for you and jump on a facetime /zoom call with them so that they can show you around and you can ask them where you would like to look.
One thing you may notice when you start to get very serious in your buying journey is that you may find yourself wanting to cross reference your decision-making process with lots of different people. All we recommend when doing this, is to pick people who either fully understand your buying journey or anyone that currently or previously owns their own home. The last thing you want is to be talked out of something that has taken up so much of your time already on the basis of a comment or advice that is not realistic to your life or situation. To conclude this, it also makes it tougher when you have conflicting advice so try to keep these number of people down to 1 if possible and make sure it’s someone reliable.
West Australians are not that familiar with hiring a buyer’s agent. This practise has become increasingly popular with people as they are extremely time poor. The agent will source properties go and look at them and based on your description and your feed back will find the perfect home for you without being emotionally involved. Usually around the 2.2% of the selling price is the fee for service however depending on the agent you have secured they will save you that money in the long run as they are working for you and not the seller. We have done this service at Vivian’s many times but not on our own listings.
