3 Tips For Buying Your First Home

Looking at buying your first home? Entering the real estate market for the first time can seem like a daunting challenge – but fear not, if you take the following tips into account, you’ll be well on your way to owning your own home.

1. Exercise Discipline With Your Savings

Since the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) lenders have become much more selective with what they’ll accept as a down payment on your house. So in order to get your foot in the door, you need to save a sizable amount of cash, ideally 20% or more. To make this an achievable target:

• Figure out how that 20% actually is
• Figure out when you’d like to purchase your home
• Divide the number of weeks between now and then, and…

That’s what you’ll have to save each week from now til then. The financial restraint you exercise during this period will help later on down the track when you have a mortgage to pay.

2. Only Buy What You Can Comfortably Afford

Buying a house that’s a little bit more expensive than what you can afford isn’t a great idea – if one little thing goes wrong (such as a medical emergency, your car breaking down, etc) then your financial situation could rapidly come unstuck. Buy a home that you can comfortably afford, because you can’t always plan life to the letter.

3. Have a Realistic View

Realize that your first home isn’t necessarily going to be your last home – if you’re just getting yourself established then you’ll probably have an opportunity to upgrade later on down the track.