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Knowing When You Are Ready To Buy

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All across Australia, there are millions of people looking to a buy home – either now or in the future. Over the last few years, lower interest rates have come along, making it more affordable than ever to buy a home. When most people stop and give it some thought – buying a home makes a lot more sense than renting a home or an apartment.

In order to buy a house, you’ll need to start saving your money and have enough for the closing costs and a down payment.  You should always best try to have 20% to put down as your down payment. If you aren’t able to put 20% down, you’ll need to buy some private mortgage insurance, which will cost you more in terms of your monthly payment.

In most cases, the closing costs will run you around 5% of the property price. Before you purchase the home, you should always get an estimate. An estimate won’t be the exact price, although it will be really close. You should always plan to save up a bit more money than you need, just to be on the safe side. It’s always best to have more than enough than not enough.

You’ll know your ready to buy a home when you know exactly how much you can afford, and you’re willing to stick with your plan. When you buy a home and get your monthly mortgage payment, it shouldn’t be any more than 25% of your total monthly income. Although there are lenders out there who will say that you can afford to pay more, you should never let them talk you into doing so – but stick to your budget instead.

Keep in mind that there is always more money involved with a home other than the mortgage payment. You also have to pay for utilities, homeowners insurance, property taxes, and maintenance. Owning and caring for a home requires a lot of responsibility. If you’ve never owned a home before, it can take a bit of time to get used to.

Before you fill out any applications, you should always look over your credit report and check for any errors. Although you may think you don’t, you can easily get an error on your credit report and not even realize it.  If you check your credit report early enough, you may leave yourself enough time to fix any problems and get your credit back on track. Rebuilding credit can take time though, sometimes even years. You should always plan ahead – and give yourself plenty of time to fix your credit.

 

Credit Crunch Looms Over Interest Only Borrowers

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While many Australians are looking forward to this new year to start afresh, there are those who dread what is to come, particularly the interest-only borrowers who are scheduled to switch to principal-and-interest repayments.

The interest-only periods of around $300bn worth of mortgages are expected to end this year, and many borrowers are left with no choice but to transfer to another lender or sell their homes amid the housing downturn. This translates to roughly 900,000 loans, or one in six mortgages, based on Australia’s $1.7bn mort According to a report in The Australian Financial Review (AFR), a borrower owing an average interest-only loan of $316,000 will need to pay an additional $400 monthly in order to meet the higher repayments. Borrowers with around $1m worth of home loans will have to pay about $880 more.

Many borrowers are faced with tight lending rules imposed by most banks. Some of those who find themselves stuck often turn to shadow banks or non-authorised deposit-taking institutions. Digital Finance Analytics principal Martin North said banks will be trying to refinance as many loans as they can, but the alternative for many buyers facing a dilemma is to seek help from these non-banks.

“It is fair to conclude that non-banks are lending like fury compared with the ADIs. But this is a big thing for the python to swallow. This is a symptom of easy non-bank funding, different capital requirements and a greater willingness to lend,” he told AFR.

However, this could potentially spur more risks ahead as borrowers who are rejected by banks often have to pay larger interest rates when they apply to non-banks.gage loan book.

 

LOCAL MORTGAGE BROKER

TRUSTED REAL ESTATE AGENT

Aussies Blame Migrants For Skyrocketing House Prices

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Australians are starting to withdraw their support to migrants due to housing affordability and overcrowding concerns, a recent poll revealed.

ANU professor Nicholas Biddle said the most common reasons given by those who do not support further population growth were housing affordability, overcrowding of cities and the support for training Australians rather than importing skilled workers.

“Nearly nine out of 10 people nominated the cost of housing being too high as a reason for not increasing Australia’s population, while 84 per cent of people said that cities are too crowded and there is too much traffic,” Biddle said.

“Intergenerational wealth inequality is evident, and it’s understandable Australians just want a fair go. But immigration does not necessarily mean higher house prices – migrants contribute net economic benefits,” Allen told The New Daily.

Moreover, Allen thinks the timing of the survey, which was conducted around the time Prime Minister Scott Morrison gave a controversial speech calling for a permanent limit on immigration, might have affected the views of the respondents. “These ills aren’t the consequence of population, but rather politicians,” she said.

However, she added that while Australia is suffering from growing challenges, opportunities and benefits still abound for the country to thrive.

“Australia’s ageing demographic profile means the pressures on young people to shoulder the economic burden of future taxation dependency presents real risks to the nation’s future. The fact is, in Australia’s demand-driven migration scheme, migrants fill jobs locals won’t or can’t. Migrants don’t take from locals. They make net contributions to the economy,” she said.

TRUSTED MORTGAGE BROKER

KENWICK PROPERTY MANAGEMENT AGENT

Checking Mortgage Rates Online

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Homeowners who are planning to re-finance their home may find the Internet to be a very worthwhile resource. The Internet is useful because it can give the homeowner a wealth of information as well as the ability to compare different rates from different lenders at their convenience.

One of the most popular advantages to researching re-financing online is the ability to comparison shop at the homeowner’s convenience.  Homeowners can also take their time comparing the quotes they receive from these lenders online instead of feeling pressured to provide an immediate response.

Homeowners who are using the Internet to research re-financing options and obtain quotes should carefully consider their sources.  Homeowners who stick with well known lenders and established websites will not likely encounter problems but those who select a new lender may be surprised by the results of the re-financing attempt.

Homeowners should also take care not to be fooled by fancy web design. A website which looks very professional is not necessarily a website which is accurate and informative. Many skilled website designers can create websites which are both attractive and professional looking.

While shopping for re-financing options online is certainly easy and convenient, homeowners should consider completing the application process in person. Completing the re-financing process in can  prevent the homeowner from being surprised by any elements of the mortgage re-finance. This may include additional fees which are tacked on during the processing of the application, rates which are only available in certain situations or other elements of the re-financing agreement which could significantly impact the homeowner’s decision making process.

LOCAL REAL ESTATE AGENT

A Basic Guide To Home Contents Insurance

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Basically, home contents insurance is insurance protection against the replacement cost that you would otherwise have to pay to replace the contents of your home in the event of then being lost, damaged or stolen. As is the case with home buildings insurance, the main factors contributing to grounds under which you can make a claim against your home contents insurance include theft/burglary, damage due to floods, burst water pipes or boilers, etc.

There are, however, two very important factors that you need to keep in mind when insuring the contents of your home:

First, in the case of home contents insurance, it is rarely the case that your mortgage provider is going to insist that you have this type of insurance as part of your mortgage agreement;

Second, regardless of whether you own or rent the property you are currently living in, you should still be looking to insure the contents of your home – as these are your personal possessions.

Two further aspects of home contents insurance also need to be considered carefully when you are checking out the different kinds of policies on offer. In some, but not all, cases you can be insured for your home contents even when the items listed in your home contents insurance policy are not actually physically located on the home ‘property’. So, for example,

First, it is possible to claim when you are transporting items from one place to another and they are stolen.

Second, home contents insurance is insurance against the replacement cost of the item being insured.
It does not, nor is it intended to, insure you against the nostalgic value of the item damaged/lost. So, for example, if you insure a picture your deceased grandmother gave you, which would cost £20 to replace, it makes little difference that it was your deceased grandmother who gave it to you and that it cannot, therefore, be replaced.

Although home contents insurance is, in all but a few very rare circumstances, a completely voluntary scheme of insurance to subscribe to, if you are in any doubt as to the value of this insurance scheme, take a quick mental inventory of the contents on your home and their value and then get a few quotes off the internet and you’ll soon be seeing the value of having your home contents properly insured.

 

KENWICK REAL ESTATE

FRIENDLY INSURANCE BROKER

Australia Clocks Fastest Value Decline In A Decade

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2018 was an underwhelming year for the Australia housing market as values fell at the fastest rate since the global financial crisis in 2008.

The CoreLogic December home value index results showed that the downturn in Australian housing conditions accelerated through last year, recording a 4.8% decline. The drop was driven by the weakness in most capital cities, particularly Sydney and Melbourne.   Sydney led the yearly drop in home values, recording an 8.9% decline. This was followed by the downtrend in Melbourne (7%), Perth (4.7%), and Darwin (1.5%). While Sydney and Melbourne recorded the weakest conditions, the peak-to-current declines were much less severe relative to Perth and Darwin, where values have been falling since mid-2014.

While other capital cities recorded improvement, conditions were not as strong in 2017. This shows that the housing slowdown goes beyond Sydney and Melbourne, according to Tim Lawless, CoreLogic head of research.urne. “Although Australia’s two largest cities are the primary drivers for the weaker national reading, most regions around the country have reacted to tighter credit conditions by recording weaker housing market results relative to 2017,” he said.

 

 

Fewer House Listings Recorded In December 2018

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It was a muted end of the year for the residential property listings in Australia as the number of homes for sale went down by 9.2% to 328,203 due to the holiday season.

While this seasonal decline is expected, SQM Research said areas such as Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra recorded larger-than-expected drops in listings at 17.7%, 17.2%, and 15.5%, respectively. Of all the city capitals, Hobart clocked the lowest rate of decline at 5.8%.

“Listings in December had some large falls. However, let us keep in mind there was a surge in listings recorded in November and that December.  Traditionally records a large fall in properties for sale as this is a holiday period,” SQM Research Louis Christopher said.  Christopher projected that prices would continue falling in Sydney and Melbourne over the next months. However, he observed that asking prices in the two cities actually increased slightly during the previous month, up by 0.7% and 0.3%, respectively.

The largest monthly boost came from Canberra, where house asking prices rose 2.5%. However, unit asking prices in the city declined by 1.1%.  Sydney recorded the highest increase in unit asking prices at 0.7% but the largest decline in house asking prices at 1.6% over the month.

 

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LOCAL NEWS

Why Some Say Turning The Debt Taps Back On Is Irresponsible

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Treasurer Josh Frydenberg welcomed the New Year by urging banks to continue approving housing loans in a bid to drive the Australian economy — a thing that, according to some market watchers, is very irresponsible to say.

Speaking in regional Victoria last week, Frydenberg told banks to keep their books open and to approve more home loan applications. “You have a social and economic responsibility to ensure affordable and accessible and timely loans to the broader public. It’s in the banks’ interests, it’s in the economy’s interests, and it’s certainly in the public’s interests,” the treasurer said.

These sentiments followed the release of the CoreLogic December home value index, which showed a 2.3% quarterly decline, the worst since 2008.

After more than a year of mortgage lenders tightening their lending screws in compliance with regulations, housing credit has slowed significantly. In fact, official figures show that credit growth moderated to 4.9% in November last year, well below the 10-year average of 6.3%. North said that allowing banks to lend more would not do any good, as home prices relative to income are significantly higher than in most other countries around the world.

“We have more than a million households with a mortgage who are struggling to make mortgage repayments today. We don’t want to stoke that fire more,” he said.  He added that it is only appropriate for banks to keep their lending standards tight and focus on the capacity of the borrowers to make repayments in assessing applications.

“Our analysis shows that around 40% of loan applications are now being rejected, compared with 5% a year ago, because people don’t actually meet the lending criteria,” he said.

Do High Rental Yields Always Translate to High Returns?

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When it comes to property investing, getting higher rental yields and achieving higher returns are the ultimate goals. However, new research shows that the former does not necessarily result in the latter.

According to a report by RiskWise Property Research, which analysed five-year trends across Australia’s housing market, higher rental yields do not automatically translate to high overall returns for investors. In fact, while properties in cheaper areas were able to give investors a steady stream of income in the short term, they resulted in lower overall returns in the medium to longer term. Closely looking at it, it does not seem surprising as home values in cheaper markets take more time to appreciate.

RiskWise chief executive Doron Peleg told The New Daily that low-rent houses would be able to realize a 63.1% increase in net equity assuming a 20% deposit. On the other hand, high-return homes would be able to clock only a 29.5% increase. This means that low-rent dwellings were able to improve their values by more than twice that of the high-rent ones.

“When you break down properties with high rental returns and low rental returns, you see purchasing the high rental returns is extremely affordable, whereas a low-rental-return dwelling costs roughly three times more, which generally means they are blue chip,” he said.

This also means, as Peleg puts it, that while many properties can “pretty much pay for themselves,” investors might be missing significant overall returns in the long run.

 

LOCAL REAL ESTATE AGENT

RELIABLE MORTGAGE BROKER

Is the Great Australian Dream a thing of the past?

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Perhaps due to the current conditions of the housing market, many Australians think the Great Australian Dream of owning a home is a thing of the past.

A new survey by Real Insurance found that two-thirds of Aussies would rather have freedom and flexibility in life over the commitment of saving for a home. Nine in 10 respondents said that achieving happiness in life is more important than having accomplished the traditional Australian dream of owning a home

“So, it seems that putting happiness, including travel and freedom, above anything else in life is the new Australian Dream. There’s nothing more important in life, after all, and reiterates how adaptable and resilient us Aussies are when faced with a challenge,” Real Insurance said. While 70% still think it is important to personally own a home in the future, three in five prospective homebuyers might find it hard to do so, as they are locked out of the property market.

The study also found that for those who are saving for a home, clothing, hobbies, tech gadgets, and eating out are some of the most common things they spend less on. “Our research shows that us Aussies are a resilient bunch who love a bodacious dream to aim for in life. So, we’re adapting our dream to meet a more realistic reality in the face of high property prices,” the study said.