Wednesday, January 12, 2011

First Home - A 5-part series on our experience as first-time home buyer

PART 2

Although with no dearth of information, in this 5-part series on being a first-time home buyer, I share my thoughts and experiences of buying my first house. This is my second post on the same  You can check out the first part on Know your Objective.


Setting Your Budget 

Once you understand your objectives clearly, you should go about setting your budget. Every post and article out there will tell you that while determining your budget, the proximity of the location to the various everyday needs of our daily lives comes into play. Take time to understand how near or far do you need your property to be from the station, bus-stop, convenient stores, malls, cinema houses, gardens, local stores, etc. as per your requirements. These will help to put the upper cap in your budget.

We were clear that we wanted to stay soon in the house with proximity to local conveniences at an arms length. Proximity locations are high-priced and to receive the best best deal we had to stretch ourselves then our means. As per that we had gone about doing our research about the locations. But although they go hand-in-hand, more about research in the next post.

But, in all honesty, we fell short, because although aware about it, while calculating our minds were constantly ONLY on the cost of the house and we did not take into account the costs of registration, agreement, transfer, etc. REMEMBER your budget should be set as per the amount you are willing to spend while buying the property which includes cost of the house, registration amount, agreement, transfers, xeroxing, notarising the agreement, etc. The smaller amounts of xeroxing, notarising , etc add up to a whole more than a few thousands, making a bigger hole in your pocket than you imagined.

While determining budget for invest-to-rent homes, although proximities are to be considered but it can be flexible as per availability. And for pure investment purpose locations, budget becomes a secondary consideration. However, do account for the periphery costs post the cost of the house.


Next Post - Do Your Research

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