First Home Buyer

Buying Your First Home

Stage 5: Choosing Your First Home

What sort of property do you want?  Would you like an apartment or a unit or a house? Is this going to be your “forever home” or your “starter home”?

A forever home is the place you plan to stay, well, forever.  It will be comfortable and suit your lifestyle, and your family’s (or your future family’s) lifestyle for many years to come.

A starter home will start you off in the real estate market.

Once you’ve paid off some of the principal of the home loan you’ll own a part of the property. This is known as equity.  With a certain percentage of equity you may be able to borrow more money to buy another property.

Many people choose to buy a home unit or apartment with a plan to sell it in the near future.  In Australia, for many years, property prices have been rising and it could be a matter of waiting for interest rates to fall or property prices to go up to make a profit from selling a starter home.  There is, however, no guarantee whatsoever that this will happen!

Others may buy a place in poor condition, do it up and sell it for a profit.

This isn’t the case for everyone.

We’ve put together a house hunting checklist. You can download the checklist here.

Look through it and check what you must have and what’s not important to you. If you’re buying with your partner, this is a good exercise to do together. Remember, some things can be added later, like a security system or ducted air-conditioning, and other things just won’t change no matter what you do, like land size and property location.

Perhaps you won’t find the things that you like in an established home and you may consider building your own home.

We’re here to help you

Dealing with banks can be a stressful experience but rest assured that our mortgage broker based in Glenelg (but our mortgage broker services the entire Adelaide Metropolitan area) can help you make the right decision about your mortgage. We will guide you at every stage of your loan process.

Contact us on 08 8376 0455 or drop into our office at 593 Anzac Highway, Glenelg SA 5045.

Next Stages

Stage 6: Inspection, Offer and Acceptance

Related Articles:

Building Your First Home
Buying an Established Home
Using Buyers Advocate

related Tools:

House Hunting Checklist
House Viewing Checklist

Any advice contained in this article is of a general nature only and does not take into account the objectives, financial situation or needs of any particular person. Therefore, before making any decision, you should consider the appropriateness of the advice with regard to those matters. Information in this article is correct as of the date of publication and is subject to change.