Buying a first home...hints and tips

Some of our do's & don'ts (this is just my experience having been through the process a few times):
Do NOT go unconditional on a contract unless all conditions especially finance are approved. Finance should be approved in writing. I recommend asking for at least a three week finance clause. Agents will try to talk you out of this. We went unconditional on a contract on verbal confirmation and the following monday, they said - no sorry, the person who said that wasn't authorised :wall:. We did get a loan through a different bank but it was a very stressful experience. If the owners won't extend the deadline, let it pass. There will be other properties.
Get a building & pest inspection. And read it. If you can be there with them, even better.
Don't get emotionally attached - it is just a house.
There is a website that shows you how much the house was last sold for. This can be great for setting a price that results in a win/win - they make money & you don't pay too much. The longer it's been since the last sale, the more likely it is that this will happen.
Do know the area, and research sale prices. Most agents will tell you the sale price once a contract is unconditional. After all it is publicly available information once RPdata get around to publishing it.

If you are considering a house that is up for auction, my tips would be:
Get an independent valuation. Yes it costs a few hundred $$ but could save you thousands.
Get finance approved before you even think about bidding.
Set your limit and stick to it. Don't set the limit by what the bank will lend you but by what the house is worth.
Ask someone else to bid for you if you think you might be nervous. Make sure they know your limit. I overheard a couple bidding at an auction once for their daughter. They went over her limit but luckily for her they said they would pay the extra (about $8K). I wonder if they considered the extra stamp duty.
You can make an offer for a house that gets passed in at auction. Offer them less than the highest bid - make them realise how greedy they were :D


Ausgirl - you generally won't need a deposit if you have at least 20% equity. Note that the equity needs to be 20% of both properties. Of course it will vary from bank to bank. Some banks will allow you to have less if you pay mortgage insurance. You will probably have to cover your own costs and stamp duty is significantly higher on investment properties. A good broker will be able to help you.

HTH

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smiles4u - good stuff on finding out who your neighbours will be. We also had a similar experience when we were renting, it got quite scary and finally ended when they burnt the unit. We did have a good experience though when we bought, both sides of the house were commission, but long termers. the only issue we had was getting the fences repaired, the Dept will not replace unless completely falling over. So if the fences are bad, be prepared for a long wait and many letters.

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So glad you worked that out ... and so glad you worked it out i didn't mean all tenants in commission housing as i have had friends live in housing and they treated it as if it were their own home & kept them beautiful ... yeh, it's the tenants with drug &/or alcohol abuse or seriously mental probs i couldn't live within the same street of ... too hard to know if tenants have probs so better just to keep clear all together & not take the chance as could be harder to resell the house.

A couple of my tips would be - once you find a house you like - go there at various times of the day. Go at night, sit outside and see what the noise levels are like, traffic etc. You might also want to consider the position of the sun, where is the west, will the hottest part of the house be living/bedrooms, etc.
Also think about asking a few neighbours in the area how they like living where they are.
Are there alot of rentals, if so, that may mean unruely neighbours depending on the tipe of housing - ie older cheaper homes may attract younger people who may tend to have more parties.
Also think about driving any of your regular commutes from the home to each place to see how long the journeys are, what the traffic is like etc.