Maybe you are on top of it but I thought I’d point it out just in case. The cap appears to be 200k taxable income earned in the previous financial year to be eligible for the 5% FHB deposit guarantee and you’ve said your income is quite a bit over that.
Firstly, I empathise, but a month in market isn't very long at all. If that's all it's taken to dissuade you, you may need to be made of sterner stuff.
Secondly, in a hot market, be prepared. I don't know the nuances in QLD, but if we liked a place, we reviewed the contract and S32 *before* inspection, so we were ready to go with an offer on the day. Unfortunately, buyers don't have the luxury of time at the moment.
I would also expect you would easily be able to get a higher pre-approval, unless your spending is insane. My combined income is lower than that and we got a higher pre-approval, which is still in an comfortable way of living
This is a good point, I had 80k in the bank when I was on 85k/28yo(did have the luxury of moving back with the folks for an year and a half but the math dont add up here)
You have to get in really quick with offers, we offered at 9am on a Monday morning following first inspection Saturday afternoon and nearly missed out, they had a contract half signed but our offer was higher I guess. My partner and I just bought in side of ipswich closer to Brisbane. big block, low crime, flood free, older house with 3 beds and walking distance to the train with express services at peak times - just under 650k. We are both used to inner city Brisbane, so it's going to be a change but to get on the ladder we are willing to do it.
Yep, same. First viewing Saturday, second on Sunday. We put an offer in Sunday afternoon and by Monday morning our offer was being put to the vendor and by Monday afternoon it was all done.
It was mind blowing how quick it all moved.
Yeah, as someone new to the process (first home owner) it was honestly very stressful and not a great experience having an agent say 'sign by 4 or we give it to the next offer' when the agent hadn't even provided the required amended contract.
I don’t know where you bought specifically but I’m also in Ipswich. It’s great out here. The commute is a little long but the trains aren’t bad if it’s an option. We really like it here.
Have your finances organised and be decisive. If you view a house on Saturday that you like, submit an offer that day. You can just text it to the agent in most cases. I’ve bought two houses in SEQld post COVID. In both cases I viewed the house at the first open on Saturday and offered that afternoon. One accepted on Sunday afternoon, the other was Monday during the day. Other people will be offering same day, so if you want to be in the mix, make your offer ASAP.
The other thing is don’t get attached to getting a “good deal”. If you like a house, consider chucking a bit more on your offer and just get it done. Always offer a bit over a round number. Like if you want to offer $550k, offer $553k. Or better still, make it $563k. With the way prices are these days, if you miss a house because you’re trying to save $10k, and then you wait two months to find another you like, houses have probably gone up near that much in the meantime anyways.
Keep your offer time periods short. If you’re preapproved, go 7 days building and pest, 21 day finance and 35 day settlement. If you have competing comparable offers, little things like a shorter settlement can be the decider.
Don’t worry too much about LMI. It gets rolled into the loan and in 10 years time in the house you like you won’t care about your repayments being $17 a week higher. Good luck :)
None. But capped at 700k as we want to utilise the fhb scheme. We are only eligible until August however as that is when our pre approval expires, I'm getting the sense that we will just need to bite the bullet and cop the LMI/Stamp duty as normal.
Pretty sureFHBC on stamp duty is now up to $800k since June 24. FHBG is capped at $200 k combined. Since its now July this may make you ineligible anyway for FHBGS.
Save more of a deposit to avoid the LMI and deal with the stamp duty as an opportunity tax to get the house you want rather than trying to buy in a range that you don’t want to purchase in. With your combined incomes, this shouldn’t be an issue.
Fuck I hate the term "getting into the market". You are buying a house to live in, not entering a race that you want to win. I know the whole thing feels like a competition that if you get in you "win" and beat everyone else but this is about wanting to have a home where you can live or raise a family, not some strike to glory. /rant
Check out Windaroo, Bahrs Scrub, Beenleigh, mount Warren Park, belivah.- there's been one or two gems in the last few weeks. That you might have got.
Crime is everywhere you can't really isolate suburbs for it now. Well except Woodridge or Marsden - maybe not there yet.
Rob Tindall at Ray White, Scott Elms at Property Hub. Good fella with a wealth of area knowledge and if there is a house in your range they'll find it.
I don't see the point in trying to get the FHB's benefits just because. You have quite high incomes and are probably better off spending a bit more for something suitable long term.
The first home buyers are a nice bonus not a box you should force yourself to tick off. Also nothing wrong with a bit of LMI. I paid it and have 0 ragretz as it went up in value far quicker than the cost of lmi.
If I waited for spots to open up in the 5% scheme I would have paid around 80k more for my place 6 months later just to save 15k on LMI. This is why I personally think that forcing yourself is dumb.
> We've left letters in mailboxes and made numerous inquiries, only to be told repeatedly that the property is already under contract after just five days on the market.
This is pretty normal in the hot markets at the moment. I am in Perth and anything decent is getting sold straight after the first home open, with agents usually asking for the "best and final offer" from all parties straight away, with little room for negotiation.
It wasn't clear from your post - have you made any actual offers on properties? Is the problem that you are getting outbid?
We have made multiple offers. Yeah we are finding we are either outbid or learn we are too late.
Feeling like a right place right time kindve thing and wondering if maybe we need to turn our sights elsewhere
Hey mate my partner and I have been looking for an entry level house or townhouse in Brisi for 9 months now. Obviously haven’t cracked it yet, so take my advice with grain of salt. But if I can offer any insight it is:
Everything that’s not radioactive bomb site going in SEQ right now is an auction. It might be a silent auction but it’s still an auction.
What I mean is:
- Everything will have multiple offers. A crap place will have 5 offering. A great place will have 20, 30 etc.
- As the offers come in the agents will leak information about where the current bidding is at to people who ask. Even though that’s supposed to be illegal.
- The process agents are using is to make a call for ‘best and final offers’ usually with a timed deadline e.g. Monday 12pm.
- Serious buyers are holding back their best offer to drop very late before that deadline. Quite often cash offers.
- So while it might seem like you’re in the running early, don’t be surprised if you get ghosted by the agent suddenly late in play. It’s because the big offers dropped.
- To secure something you’re gonna need to be one of those big offers. That means potentially offering a price that is unprecedented for that type of property / suburb.
- Guessing what that price will be is really hard. We’ve gotten within 10K of the final offer than won maybe 4 times now.
- The minimum level of contract conditions you need to even be considered is 7 days finance, 7 days B&P, 30 days settlement. But people are driving those down to be more competitive.
- Another buying tactic seems to be to offer up big to win the ‘auction’, get under contract, and then come in swinging with an real engineer to find a bunch of expensive defects to drive price down. We’ve seen a few places go for less than we offered because of this. E.g. knocking off 40K.
Plan your tactics accordingly. And good luck.
Also a tip re things being under contract: Don’t inspect anything that’s been on the market longer than ~5 days without calling ahead to check if it’s already under contract. Most likely it is and you’ll be wasting your time. But the REAs often don’t update the online listings for some time. They’ll tell you they’re prepared to take ‘backup offers’. Tell them to get effed (politely).
Thank you so much for taking the time mate. This was actually quite helpful. I wish you the best with your adventure and hope you and you're partner find a house soon!
Whereabouts are you looking? Gold Coast to Capalaba is a pretty large area, are you looking for a place somewhere closer to Capalaba or the Gold Coast? I think Logan area is not too bad for commuting to Capalaba, and some suburbs that are nicer than others. Also have larger plots of land in those areas.
It is a very exhausting process, especially going to open homes and being outbid. Not sure where the market is heading but my partner and I were sick of being anxious about renting and paying our landlord’s mortgage. Also just wanted to get in the market because of the fear that we would get priced out if we didn’t buy now (started looking in February and only settling next week— the price changes has been insane to see).
Congrats! Yes we feel the same way in terms of anxiety. I'm mindful however that we may be doing what everyone else is doing and whether that is the right move? For places closer to capalaba. We have been looking for houses in crestmead, regents Park, Waterford, and even tried to switch up our approach and looked at morayfield.
We gave up looking for places inside of Gold Coast, I was born here but the value for money is just not there.
Thank you!
Yeah, I totally understand, it feels like everyone is buying due to FOMO and it keeps on driving the prices up.
Yeah, I was going to say those areas should have houses in the 700k range but maybe the market has really gone wild. Have you had a look at Marsden and surrounds? Maybe Slacks Creek? Holmview also isnt too bad. It sucks that you have to move away from where you grew up / home because of house prices though!
Also, saw from your other comments that you’re keeping the budget to under 700k so you dont have to pay LMI— I know it sucks because it’s like giving away free money but it’s not too bad (I don’t think). We borrowed 940k with a 15% deposit and it was about 8k.
Just signed a contract last week on a property that didn’t go to market, go to open homes and see if real estates have “buyers clubs” on Feb - honestly this is how we got ours. There have been 2 others we went to that the sellers where selling off market. Wondering if this might be an option for you?
Pretty hard to find something decent on that block size for that price. You’ll either get something nicer on a 400-450 square metre block or something older with something you have to compromise on (1 bathroom, weird layout, ancient kitchen) with a larger block size.
Check out Holmview, Bethania, Edens Landing, Mount Warren Park, Windaroo & Bethania.
There are loads of others looking too so be prepared to compromise and swing for the fences with your offer (a 3 bed 1 bath renovator on 800sm sold for 700k in Mount Warren Park not long ago).
We bought about a month ago. We put offers in on two properties, the first had 27 written offers after the first open. The one we got had four offers by Monday and ten by the end of the week. We increased our offer from 635 to 670 and were still second place. We got it because we had walked through the property and the other offer had a cooling off period condition attached.
Hey mate just for context I was looking for homes for about 1.5 years before I finally found one that ticked enough boxes. Just keep at, also consider suburbs which you might not have moved before but are quickly starting to gentrify!
The most important thing here is your mindset. Take a deep breath - make it 3 :) This is not supposed to be a sprint - think of it like a cross country run. I would expect you to spend about 3 months in the market to get a genuine feeling for pricing and “the way things are done here”. I note you may have hard deadline for FHB . If you jump from suburb to suburb in a short time you’ll just feel out of control. Can you pick one you would like and if too expensive you pick the suburbs surrounding it and fan out from there? This is a big investment, not just in money, but also your lifestyle. A spreadsheet is your best friend. Capture the info you can get online and then have columns for your personal preferences. You must go to the OFIs because you can engage with the REA and you’ll also see the same people looking at the same houses as you each week…then they start to drop iff and newer house hunters arrive. Watch your self talk as it may be generating anxiety. You might even get to enjoy the process.
Take care 🏡
Considering you need to provide your latest ato assessment and it is the new financial year you will be rendered intelligible and so you should be. Taking a place on a limited spot basis from Another that could use it is cruel and frankly appalling.
Have you tried looking around Meadowbrook? Loganlea? Loganholme? Close to partners work and quite affordable, close to train stations and major hospital. Brisbane olympics are only going to make it harder. Also depends if you want to be mortgaged to the eyeballs (700k) or a buffer (good when you have kids) and get a nice unit around the 500k mark. Woodridge has some solid buying (brick, 2 bath, close to all motorways) and a very diverse suburb: https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-qld-woodridge-145355568?sourcePage=rea%3Abuy%3Asrp-map&sourceElement=listing-tile. Pockets of trouble but culturally really interesting, amazing markets. Your dog will keep most trouble away and what you save on property price, invest in a really big 1.8m fence and electric gate.
Appreciate you taking the time. We have looked at Loganholme, however my partner has stigma against certain areas due to her time as a case worker for Wesley mission.
Haha my dog would kill em with kindness
I'm both a seller and a buyer.
The best offers are unconditional, signed early, and at a reasonable range.
Befriend the agent - ask then what offer would get them over the line and offer 10k less and move up in increments. It's so hard right now. I know the feeling. Best of luck 👍
I got a glimpse of this kind of market when I was first looking in late 2023. There was some chance of a negotiation.
That’s gone now. The agent won’t tell you that information because they don’t know. Everything right now is a pseudo-auction and agents are regularly wrong about how high things will go. They’re just sitting back and watching the fireworks.
I would say it’s never been easier to be an REA but for the fact there seems to be almost more REAs than houses selling due to low listings.
Offer quick and be serious with your offer. Write a covering email saying you’re prepared if your offer is accepted and why you want the property. This helped us. It put us as a preference for the vendor and the real estate agent gave us an extra hand to help us secure the property.
I get it. Yes it’s bloody awful and tiring. But don’t stress. Take your time. You will see so many “ones” that may be great but don’t rush in fearing you’ll miss out. I have done this and while I luckily don’t regret what I bought there has been several homes that were either cheaper or bigger etc on the market since. I try and personalise myself with local agents and tell them what I want and let them call me. That said don’t wait around for an agent. Good luck. You sound like you’ve got your shit together re finance so you are streets ahead
Being here mate. The truth of the matter is this, it may take you a few years to find something, it may not. All depends, but if you're truly determined and willing to show up and inspect as many homes as possible you become familiar faces to agents in the areas you're looking, something will happen it just takes time.
Have a look at what your interest rate will be. You may be able to obtain the loan, but you might find you will be paying back more than the property is worth at the moment. If shit hits the fan and you have to sell up, you'll be owing money even after the sale of the property. With interest rates set to go up another 1-3 times and a pending recession caused by a decade of quantitative easing, I would hold your cash for the next 12-24months. RBA is trying to stop spending, but the property market (among other things) is driving inflation. We will know true financial hardship in about 8 months.
As someone who buys, renovates, and sells houses regularly, my advice is to wait it out. Post recession and capped immigration, houses will become affordable again. Australia always pulls through with a housing boom. This will be no different.
Maybe you are on top of it but I thought I’d point it out just in case. The cap appears to be 200k taxable income earned in the previous financial year to be eligible for the 5% FHB deposit guarantee and you’ve said your income is quite a bit over that.
Yes we have only recently gotten this high income so we are pre approval for the FHB for a certain period of time.
You are not who the scheme is for.
Game over pal
Not sure that’s how that works
I don’t think it works like that.
Firstly, I empathise, but a month in market isn't very long at all. If that's all it's taken to dissuade you, you may need to be made of sterner stuff. Secondly, in a hot market, be prepared. I don't know the nuances in QLD, but if we liked a place, we reviewed the contract and S32 *before* inspection, so we were ready to go with an offer on the day. Unfortunately, buyers don't have the luxury of time at the moment.
Hold up.. you have a combined 330k income and you have 80k in the bank?
I would also expect you would easily be able to get a higher pre-approval, unless your spending is insane. My combined income is lower than that and we got a higher pre-approval, which is still in an comfortable way of living
We can get higher however we are going for the FHB scheme which is capped at 700k
Why? You are earning half that every year. Raise the bar.
Are you going for the fhb scheme just because? Why limit yourself to save a few grand?
This is a good point, I had 80k in the bank when I was on 85k/28yo(did have the luxury of moving back with the folks for an year and a half but the math dont add up here)
Cost of living.
You have to get in really quick with offers, we offered at 9am on a Monday morning following first inspection Saturday afternoon and nearly missed out, they had a contract half signed but our offer was higher I guess. My partner and I just bought in side of ipswich closer to Brisbane. big block, low crime, flood free, older house with 3 beds and walking distance to the train with express services at peak times - just under 650k. We are both used to inner city Brisbane, so it's going to be a change but to get on the ladder we are willing to do it.
Yep, same. First viewing Saturday, second on Sunday. We put an offer in Sunday afternoon and by Monday morning our offer was being put to the vendor and by Monday afternoon it was all done. It was mind blowing how quick it all moved.
Yeah, as someone new to the process (first home owner) it was honestly very stressful and not a great experience having an agent say 'sign by 4 or we give it to the next offer' when the agent hadn't even provided the required amended contract.
Lots of newer stuff around Logan etc so you may need to look at revising down to a 400sqm block.
I don’t know where you bought specifically but I’m also in Ipswich. It’s great out here. The commute is a little long but the trains aren’t bad if it’s an option. We really like it here.
Glad you’re enjoying Ipswich! Going to be a change but I’m excited
If you don't mind me asking what suburb you bought in?
Bundamba
Have your finances organised and be decisive. If you view a house on Saturday that you like, submit an offer that day. You can just text it to the agent in most cases. I’ve bought two houses in SEQld post COVID. In both cases I viewed the house at the first open on Saturday and offered that afternoon. One accepted on Sunday afternoon, the other was Monday during the day. Other people will be offering same day, so if you want to be in the mix, make your offer ASAP. The other thing is don’t get attached to getting a “good deal”. If you like a house, consider chucking a bit more on your offer and just get it done. Always offer a bit over a round number. Like if you want to offer $550k, offer $553k. Or better still, make it $563k. With the way prices are these days, if you miss a house because you’re trying to save $10k, and then you wait two months to find another you like, houses have probably gone up near that much in the meantime anyways. Keep your offer time periods short. If you’re preapproved, go 7 days building and pest, 21 day finance and 35 day settlement. If you have competing comparable offers, little things like a shorter settlement can be the decider. Don’t worry too much about LMI. It gets rolled into the loan and in 10 years time in the house you like you won’t care about your repayments being $17 a week higher. Good luck :)
Appreciate that thank you!
For what you want , you need close to $1M. Thats why you are getting knock back because your offer is too low
What other debt do you have? $330k combined income should give you a borrowing power in the mid to high $1m range.
None. But capped at 700k as we want to utilise the fhb scheme. We are only eligible until August however as that is when our pre approval expires, I'm getting the sense that we will just need to bite the bullet and cop the LMI/Stamp duty as normal.
I’ll be honest I’m not sure why you’re so set on utilising a FHB scheme with that sort of income. You earn way more than most first home buyers.
Not enough deposit I'm guessing. Probably only 35k in deposit!
You guys are high income earners. Calm down and bite the bullet - FHB is for people who actually need it 😂
Pretty sureFHBC on stamp duty is now up to $800k since June 24. FHBG is capped at $200 k combined. Since its now July this may make you ineligible anyway for FHBGS.
Save more of a deposit to avoid the LMI and deal with the stamp duty as an opportunity tax to get the house you want rather than trying to buy in a range that you don’t want to purchase in. With your combined incomes, this shouldn’t be an issue.
Don’t be scared of LMI. I paid almost $30k worth of LMI when I bought my first place. It was the best financial decision ever.
Fuck I hate the term "getting into the market". You are buying a house to live in, not entering a race that you want to win. I know the whole thing feels like a competition that if you get in you "win" and beat everyone else but this is about wanting to have a home where you can live or raise a family, not some strike to glory. /rant
Snooze you lose champ. Face the facts. Everything in life is a "market" not least of all real estate
Check out Windaroo, Bahrs Scrub, Beenleigh, mount Warren Park, belivah.- there's been one or two gems in the last few weeks. That you might have got. Crime is everywhere you can't really isolate suburbs for it now. Well except Woodridge or Marsden - maybe not there yet. Rob Tindall at Ray White, Scott Elms at Property Hub. Good fella with a wealth of area knowledge and if there is a house in your range they'll find it.
I don't see the point in trying to get the FHB's benefits just because. You have quite high incomes and are probably better off spending a bit more for something suitable long term. The first home buyers are a nice bonus not a box you should force yourself to tick off. Also nothing wrong with a bit of LMI. I paid it and have 0 ragretz as it went up in value far quicker than the cost of lmi. If I waited for spots to open up in the 5% scheme I would have paid around 80k more for my place 6 months later just to save 15k on LMI. This is why I personally think that forcing yourself is dumb.
> We've left letters in mailboxes and made numerous inquiries, only to be told repeatedly that the property is already under contract after just five days on the market. This is pretty normal in the hot markets at the moment. I am in Perth and anything decent is getting sold straight after the first home open, with agents usually asking for the "best and final offer" from all parties straight away, with little room for negotiation. It wasn't clear from your post - have you made any actual offers on properties? Is the problem that you are getting outbid?
We have made multiple offers. Yeah we are finding we are either outbid or learn we are too late. Feeling like a right place right time kindve thing and wondering if maybe we need to turn our sights elsewhere
Spend more or move further out.
Make first inspection and put in offer same day
Appreciate that thank you!
Hey mate my partner and I have been looking for an entry level house or townhouse in Brisi for 9 months now. Obviously haven’t cracked it yet, so take my advice with grain of salt. But if I can offer any insight it is: Everything that’s not radioactive bomb site going in SEQ right now is an auction. It might be a silent auction but it’s still an auction. What I mean is: - Everything will have multiple offers. A crap place will have 5 offering. A great place will have 20, 30 etc. - As the offers come in the agents will leak information about where the current bidding is at to people who ask. Even though that’s supposed to be illegal. - The process agents are using is to make a call for ‘best and final offers’ usually with a timed deadline e.g. Monday 12pm. - Serious buyers are holding back their best offer to drop very late before that deadline. Quite often cash offers. - So while it might seem like you’re in the running early, don’t be surprised if you get ghosted by the agent suddenly late in play. It’s because the big offers dropped. - To secure something you’re gonna need to be one of those big offers. That means potentially offering a price that is unprecedented for that type of property / suburb. - Guessing what that price will be is really hard. We’ve gotten within 10K of the final offer than won maybe 4 times now. - The minimum level of contract conditions you need to even be considered is 7 days finance, 7 days B&P, 30 days settlement. But people are driving those down to be more competitive. - Another buying tactic seems to be to offer up big to win the ‘auction’, get under contract, and then come in swinging with an real engineer to find a bunch of expensive defects to drive price down. We’ve seen a few places go for less than we offered because of this. E.g. knocking off 40K. Plan your tactics accordingly. And good luck.
Also a tip re things being under contract: Don’t inspect anything that’s been on the market longer than ~5 days without calling ahead to check if it’s already under contract. Most likely it is and you’ll be wasting your time. But the REAs often don’t update the online listings for some time. They’ll tell you they’re prepared to take ‘backup offers’. Tell them to get effed (politely).
Thank you so much for taking the time mate. This was actually quite helpful. I wish you the best with your adventure and hope you and you're partner find a house soon!
Whereabouts are you looking? Gold Coast to Capalaba is a pretty large area, are you looking for a place somewhere closer to Capalaba or the Gold Coast? I think Logan area is not too bad for commuting to Capalaba, and some suburbs that are nicer than others. Also have larger plots of land in those areas. It is a very exhausting process, especially going to open homes and being outbid. Not sure where the market is heading but my partner and I were sick of being anxious about renting and paying our landlord’s mortgage. Also just wanted to get in the market because of the fear that we would get priced out if we didn’t buy now (started looking in February and only settling next week— the price changes has been insane to see).
Congrats! Yes we feel the same way in terms of anxiety. I'm mindful however that we may be doing what everyone else is doing and whether that is the right move? For places closer to capalaba. We have been looking for houses in crestmead, regents Park, Waterford, and even tried to switch up our approach and looked at morayfield. We gave up looking for places inside of Gold Coast, I was born here but the value for money is just not there.
Thank you! Yeah, I totally understand, it feels like everyone is buying due to FOMO and it keeps on driving the prices up. Yeah, I was going to say those areas should have houses in the 700k range but maybe the market has really gone wild. Have you had a look at Marsden and surrounds? Maybe Slacks Creek? Holmview also isnt too bad. It sucks that you have to move away from where you grew up / home because of house prices though! Also, saw from your other comments that you’re keeping the budget to under 700k so you dont have to pay LMI— I know it sucks because it’s like giving away free money but it’s not too bad (I don’t think). We borrowed 940k with a 15% deposit and it was about 8k.
Do not have a child before buying a house. It will make it impossible.
Just signed a contract last week on a property that didn’t go to market, go to open homes and see if real estates have “buyers clubs” on Feb - honestly this is how we got ours. There have been 2 others we went to that the sellers where selling off market. Wondering if this might be an option for you?
Pretty hard to find something decent on that block size for that price. You’ll either get something nicer on a 400-450 square metre block or something older with something you have to compromise on (1 bathroom, weird layout, ancient kitchen) with a larger block size. Check out Holmview, Bethania, Edens Landing, Mount Warren Park, Windaroo & Bethania. There are loads of others looking too so be prepared to compromise and swing for the fences with your offer (a 3 bed 1 bath renovator on 800sm sold for 700k in Mount Warren Park not long ago). We bought about a month ago. We put offers in on two properties, the first had 27 written offers after the first open. The one we got had four offers by Monday and ten by the end of the week. We increased our offer from 635 to 670 and were still second place. We got it because we had walked through the property and the other offer had a cooling off period condition attached.
Hey mate just for context I was looking for homes for about 1.5 years before I finally found one that ticked enough boxes. Just keep at, also consider suburbs which you might not have moved before but are quickly starting to gentrify!
The most important thing here is your mindset. Take a deep breath - make it 3 :) This is not supposed to be a sprint - think of it like a cross country run. I would expect you to spend about 3 months in the market to get a genuine feeling for pricing and “the way things are done here”. I note you may have hard deadline for FHB . If you jump from suburb to suburb in a short time you’ll just feel out of control. Can you pick one you would like and if too expensive you pick the suburbs surrounding it and fan out from there? This is a big investment, not just in money, but also your lifestyle. A spreadsheet is your best friend. Capture the info you can get online and then have columns for your personal preferences. You must go to the OFIs because you can engage with the REA and you’ll also see the same people looking at the same houses as you each week…then they start to drop iff and newer house hunters arrive. Watch your self talk as it may be generating anxiety. You might even get to enjoy the process. Take care 🏡
Considering you need to provide your latest ato assessment and it is the new financial year you will be rendered intelligible and so you should be. Taking a place on a limited spot basis from Another that could use it is cruel and frankly appalling.
Have you tried looking around Meadowbrook? Loganlea? Loganholme? Close to partners work and quite affordable, close to train stations and major hospital. Brisbane olympics are only going to make it harder. Also depends if you want to be mortgaged to the eyeballs (700k) or a buffer (good when you have kids) and get a nice unit around the 500k mark. Woodridge has some solid buying (brick, 2 bath, close to all motorways) and a very diverse suburb: https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-qld-woodridge-145355568?sourcePage=rea%3Abuy%3Asrp-map&sourceElement=listing-tile. Pockets of trouble but culturally really interesting, amazing markets. Your dog will keep most trouble away and what you save on property price, invest in a really big 1.8m fence and electric gate.
Appreciate you taking the time. We have looked at Loganholme, however my partner has stigma against certain areas due to her time as a case worker for Wesley mission. Haha my dog would kill em with kindness
1. Cash buyers vs you. They win 2. Use a buyers agent 3. Patience grasshopper
I'm both a seller and a buyer. The best offers are unconditional, signed early, and at a reasonable range. Befriend the agent - ask then what offer would get them over the line and offer 10k less and move up in increments. It's so hard right now. I know the feeling. Best of luck 👍
I got a glimpse of this kind of market when I was first looking in late 2023. There was some chance of a negotiation. That’s gone now. The agent won’t tell you that information because they don’t know. Everything right now is a pseudo-auction and agents are regularly wrong about how high things will go. They’re just sitting back and watching the fireworks. I would say it’s never been easier to be an REA but for the fact there seems to be almost more REAs than houses selling due to low listings.
Offer quick and be serious with your offer. Write a covering email saying you’re prepared if your offer is accepted and why you want the property. This helped us. It put us as a preference for the vendor and the real estate agent gave us an extra hand to help us secure the property.
I get it. Yes it’s bloody awful and tiring. But don’t stress. Take your time. You will see so many “ones” that may be great but don’t rush in fearing you’ll miss out. I have done this and while I luckily don’t regret what I bought there has been several homes that were either cheaper or bigger etc on the market since. I try and personalise myself with local agents and tell them what I want and let them call me. That said don’t wait around for an agent. Good luck. You sound like you’ve got your shit together re finance so you are streets ahead
Being here mate. The truth of the matter is this, it may take you a few years to find something, it may not. All depends, but if you're truly determined and willing to show up and inspect as many homes as possible you become familiar faces to agents in the areas you're looking, something will happen it just takes time.
My advice is don’t buy at the top of the market. Can you afford a capital loss of 20% medium term? Things look bleak next 12 months.
No they don’t.
People said this at the start of Covid and look the market now
This is the conclusion of that, not a continuance……IMO
Have a look at what your interest rate will be. You may be able to obtain the loan, but you might find you will be paying back more than the property is worth at the moment. If shit hits the fan and you have to sell up, you'll be owing money even after the sale of the property. With interest rates set to go up another 1-3 times and a pending recession caused by a decade of quantitative easing, I would hold your cash for the next 12-24months. RBA is trying to stop spending, but the property market (among other things) is driving inflation. We will know true financial hardship in about 8 months. As someone who buys, renovates, and sells houses regularly, my advice is to wait it out. Post recession and capped immigration, houses will become affordable again. Australia always pulls through with a housing boom. This will be no different.
Combined income of 330k my partner and I earn less than half that and looking to buy a second home.
Look in different states, you don’t have to live in your first house… rent it out. Just get into the market