You have long been contemplating to buy a first house for the family. But before you start making your house search and shopping for lender, make sure you answer these questions first to assess your real need and possibility to own a house of your own.
1. Are you prepared to stay put for at least 3 years at your new home? If you are not ready to stay in your newly purchased property for minimum of 3years, perhaps you have to put off this idea now. The reason is the kind of investment with property purchase and the associated fees charged on both buy/sell transaction would simply makes it impossible. You will end up lose money no matter it is a rising or falling market (here you end up losing even more money as your property will have depreciated in price).
2. Do you have good credit rating? Most of us get a mortgage for our new house and those lenders would discriminate against customer who does not have a decent credit rating to show. If you have this problem, make sure you spend effort to clean up your credit report by fixing any problem that may get reflected in the report before you go shop for a house.
3. Is your dream home within affordability? As a general rule of thumb, most lenders are happy to lend up to 80 percent of purchase price. But to have a better idea on the kind of loan amount you can be approved on, make use of those online calculators at the bankers’ sites to check this in relation to your income, debts, and expenses.
4. Size of down payment As mentioned above, banks expect you to put up at least 20 percent of purchase price. When you are not able to pay that amount, you may have to talk to some other lenders like the sub-prime folks.
5. Convenient public amenities and facilities for the family. The point cuts both way as buyers would want easy access to amenities and facilities while sellers knows they can charge a premium on their properties that are suitably located.
6. Find a good property agent If this is the first property you are going to buy, consider using a professional property agent. In fact, try to go for those exclusive buyer agents where possible as they can help the negotiation process on your behalf.
Finally, when you choose to go ahead with the house hunting, get ready for some serious work. Always do a background check on the property that interest you, before you get to meet the prospective seller or the representative. You would want to find out the sales trend of similar housing type in the nearby area. Check the most recent transacted prices. This way you will walk into the negotiation confident and talk your way into buying that dream home of yours.
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