Tips to Buying Your First Home - Part 1
If you are looking forward to becoming an owner of a house for the first time, there are several things which you will need to take note on.
Before you embark on the journey of becoming a home owner, do make sure that you hunt for your new home well enough to ensure that you will be the owner for at least three to five years, or longer.
While many people may be investors who by houses for the sake of selling them off for a profit within a short time (an idea made popular by the writer of Rich Dad, Poor Dad), it is not advisable for your first home.
Taking it up longer is better, since it will usually take that long to build equity in a home, and to balance out your investment cost.
A home will need to take on the characteristics of a home, and this will include the neighbourhood.
Filter through the many houses and neighbourhoods within the range of your affordability and work from there.
Some developers will build townships, such as IOI Properties, but will it be within the price range that you are comfortable with? Home prices do fall, and it is a fallacy to think that home prices can only go up.
If a person gives you the advice that home prices will only keep rising, obviously he or she had not seen the serious economic downturns.
That aside, as property prices fall, interest rates also fall, giving you the upper hand of negotiation.
Almost all banks will offer the same interest rates, so it will be up to you to find out what are the strings attached to the banks.
Some banks charge interest the moment you are late on a bank payment even if it was just within one day, while others may be slightly more lenient and give you a few days to pay up after the due date before charging you more.
After all these background about searching for your home and neighbourhood, and the bank policies, you are ready to buy your first home.
In this series of articles we will highlight ten tips for you to make wise selection of your first home.
Owning a home should be a happy event, and our tips from Part 2 onwards will make the process easier for you.
Before you embark on the journey of becoming a home owner, do make sure that you hunt for your new home well enough to ensure that you will be the owner for at least three to five years, or longer.
While many people may be investors who by houses for the sake of selling them off for a profit within a short time (an idea made popular by the writer of Rich Dad, Poor Dad), it is not advisable for your first home.
Taking it up longer is better, since it will usually take that long to build equity in a home, and to balance out your investment cost.
A home will need to take on the characteristics of a home, and this will include the neighbourhood.
Filter through the many houses and neighbourhoods within the range of your affordability and work from there.
Some developers will build townships, such as IOI Properties, but will it be within the price range that you are comfortable with? Home prices do fall, and it is a fallacy to think that home prices can only go up.
If a person gives you the advice that home prices will only keep rising, obviously he or she had not seen the serious economic downturns.
That aside, as property prices fall, interest rates also fall, giving you the upper hand of negotiation.
Almost all banks will offer the same interest rates, so it will be up to you to find out what are the strings attached to the banks.
Some banks charge interest the moment you are late on a bank payment even if it was just within one day, while others may be slightly more lenient and give you a few days to pay up after the due date before charging you more.
After all these background about searching for your home and neighbourhood, and the bank policies, you are ready to buy your first home.
In this series of articles we will highlight ten tips for you to make wise selection of your first home.
Owning a home should be a happy event, and our tips from Part 2 onwards will make the process easier for you.
