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

PART 5

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. Click on the links to check out  the earlier posts in this series.

Know Your Objectives

Setting Budget

Do Your Research
Bank Home Loan

 

Paperwork

Most important facet is the legal documentation. Having a trusted and good agent goes a long way. The original agreement is taken over by the loan providing bank. Therefore, as proof, always have a notarised copy with you along with an acknowledgement from the bank of receiving the original agreement with them. Also, do keep xerox acknowledgements of all the cheques and receipts for anything and everything. We had spent more than a couple of thousands only in getting the documents prepared.

But in all honesty, after all this hard work, we fell in love with a place out of the blue and one we had barely seen. We went for a walk, good ambience in a society, a simple enquiry, good eye of our agent, all came together in a sequence of event and we said yes within a day's time at the seller's price (It was a steal any which ways). After a week, we saw the actual place and fell in love all over again. That's fate, I guess. Happy Hunting and a very Happy New Year :-)  

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

PART 3
 
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. Click on the links to check out  the earlier posts in this series.

Know Your Objectives
Setting Budget








Do Your Research


Nothing beats research and all the research in the world can fall short. You can go in with all the knowledge and understanding and yet be blind to the shortcomings. 

Before we went hunting for our home, first we researched to understand a little bit the functioning of the real estate industry as well the locations that we would like to stay in. The price band for every location. We even researched our resources and sources and the options available within our budget. Once we had finalised on the location, we researched the inside out of the place. We physically went to the locations several times and in different time zones of the day and said no to many good properties as it there was security problem at night time.  All this gave us the satisfaction of knowing that we are in for a good deal before we finalised everything on paper.

This is also a good time to research regarding bank loans if you are availing any. We had enquired with almost all the leading banks for their interest rates, availability of the loan amount, time for sanction and release of loan and terms and conditions. However, we did not anticipate a few things which would talk about in the next post.


Next Post - Bank Home Loans

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