Would you buy a new house to take advantage of the increases first home buyers grant and no stamp duty or would you suck it up and buy an established house and not get anything??
I'm thinking to just get into the market to look at a brand new home to take advantage of incentives but i just don't know.
I think these incentive trap so many people, I don't think it matters about a new or old house. Just that you look within your range. Sometimes the bonus is not worth what a new house is ITMS.
I guess the fact that the first home buyers grant has been doubled to 15K, some lenders are now using rental history as part of your genuine savings and the stamp duty thing is what is making me think about it.
We used the bonuses etc as they paid for the stamp duty (we're in Vic, the stamp duty capital of Oz). We also prefer new houses and didn't want to renovate. We looked at both new and old and buying new came in cheaper for us. it's not a long term house, but it's a good start.
The thing with building is, unless you live with someone for free, you have to pay rent as well as a mortage while the house gets built - at least 7 months. There are so many costs associated with building that people don't realise (I work for a building company). You don't just pay for the house model, there's all sorts of shire fees etc that can add up.
We ummed and aaahed about building vs buying established, and have gone established. Not a long term home (less than 5 years) but we got 30kms CLOSER to CBD on a much, much larger block for the same price we'd have got building. If you're thinking long term and value, IMO established closer to CBD is better - as it gets rezoned for development the land sells for a crapload.
I personally wouldn't buy/build just because of the increase in government assistance. If you were going to anyway then bonus for you!
Gah, have they done that again? This is why house prices are so bloody high!
I agree, it's a trap - you need to do all the math and figure it out, dont' just take the 'incentive'. Subsidies generally just push up end prices and as a taxpayer you end up paying twice.
We did it. Signed over 6 years ago. No deposit and made the most of the builders and government grants offered at the time (about $20K worth). We did it because we could see no way out of the renters market and thought we'd see what the builder/bank would say.
So we signed up in stage one of an estate and got our house built. We've worked hard on it, added things over the years and tonight are getting an appraisal because it's about to go on the market.
We built the smallest house they had on offer, picked a block in a location that is opposite a nice green park and with the prices around here now, we're looking to make a profit of $80 - $100K. We made sure we didn't borrow the max they offered and fixed our interest rates at a rate we could manage. We always intended it would be a stepping stone to the house we really wanted and now it's time to make the most of that!
At the time we also got fixed site costs too. We knew from the start how much it was going to cost and it didn't defer from that.
We did it here too. For us, it worked out the most affordable way to get what we wanted. If we had bought established, it wouldn't have been in as nice an area, and it would have needed a lot more work. The only sacrifice is that it was a bit further out of the city, but closer to the beach so that was a win for us.
Not sure what state you are in, but here in SA, there is a government run agency, that gives loans to low income earners and families etc, and one of their loans is for building. The good thing with that is you don't have to start paying your mortgage until handover of the house, whereas other banks you start paying as soon as you settle on the land. For us, it meant that e could still pay the rent whilst the house was being built. So maybe worth a look into.
And as a few pp mentioned, we didn't build our forever home. It is our home for right now, and we know that within 10 years we will have outgrown it, but at least we got the starter home that suits us.
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