Buying a first home...hints and tips

[Lilly-Pilly]

So we're thinking of hopefully buying a first home in the not too distant future. Still have to save more before its even considered, but looking for peoples hints and tips to saving, buying a house, how people have managed this on a budget or how people have managed to buy a house by thinking outside the square a little.
This is something i wouldn't rush into unless i felt 100% certain we could afford the next step.
Just want to hear other peoples experiences
Also, what is standard these days for a deposit?
Thanks!

[Arimeh]

I think the deposit depends on your bank for the most part. Although, when we got our first home, we had 10% and that was fine - but we still needed to pay mortgage insurance (blah) which was like, 3 grand or something!! and our loan was only for $249,000!!

We had 20% deposit for this place we are in now, but the bank wanted 30% deposit before no mortgage insurance was needed (cos we are out in the sticks, like 25kms from Launceston.. pffft) so we had to pay that too, but it was nowhere near as much.

I think most banks are still around the 10% deposit, some are 5% - however your mortgage insurance would be HUGE I imagine if you went with one for 5%.

We got the cheapest and most livable house for our first, and did it up a bit, made a little bit of a profit and then got another house in tassie which was in our price limit (so we could pay the mortgage on one wage) and its basically brand new - even though its in the sticks.

We wanted basically a house that we didn't have to do anything to (ie to make it livable!) and that we could just live in when the kids were young so we could spend all of this time with them, instead of spending it renovating. We'll sell up in 5 years time though and buy a bigger place.

[Lulu]

Try to avoid Mortgage Insurance if you can.

Research the hell out of the areas you want to buy in. Get all the weekend papers, check out a few auctions and get a feel for the game. Cos it's a big FAT GAME.
When you feel more confident about what's going on, you tend to be able to spot whats fair and keep emotion out of it. Try to be a 'business' person.

xoxoxo

[Peg]

and beware of auctions

there are some dodgy realestate auctioneers out there and at some auctions they plant dummy bidders to push the price up.

If you can find something 'for sale' as opposed to 'for auction' you'd be better off going for it to save yourself the runaround.

and if you find something you like that is going for auction and its a rainy day, you should go to it because the stats show that rainy day's attract less bidders.

[Lulu]

I'd never buy at auction - but they are interesting to watch.

[AnyDream]

Check with your state government if you fall into a low income category, as some of them run subsidised loan schemes. My sister qualified for being a single parent, basically it's a reduced rate of interest and your repayments are tiered against your income, rather than against interest rates (this is in South Australia). Worth looking into IMO.

We spent about 6 months watching the market (yes that means watching the newspapers & websites but also networking with r.e. agents in the area you're interested in) and went to lots and lots of opens to get an idea of what features etc are available in what price range. The house we finally bought was a lot more modest - and therefore priced a lot lower- than others we'd seen BUT had all the core features we wanted (think things like fencing, garages, usability of kitchen & bathroom in their current state, age of hot water & heating/cooling systems, condition of roof etc) without needing to spend any $$ on maintenance in the short term.

[Lulu]

Check with your state government if you fall into a low income category, as some of them run subsidised loan schemes. My sister qualified for being a single parent, basically it's a reduced rate of interest and your repayments are tiered against your income, rather than against interest rates (this is in South Australia). Worth looking into IMO.

I worry about this - I'm not sure if it's exactly the same but this was done in Vic about 10 (?) years ago and ended in people never managing to make a dent in their debts and a huge class action against the govt.