Finding The Right Area To Live In

It is an important decision and not one to be taken lightly - choosing the area you want to live. Take your time and carefully consider what is it you are after from your desired location.

Deciding which area to look in for your first home is not necessarily as simple and obvious as it seems. You possibly have a firm idea of the location you wish to buy a property. However, there are rafts of subsequent and compounding decisions which may confound on your initial thought processes.

Ask yourself:

What stage of life are you in?
Are you single – and happy to remain so?
Are you in a relationship and not contemplating children?
Are you in a relationship and undecided about children, or maybe totally committed to having children?

This is only the start of many aspects that may ultimately make you change direction numerous times before deciding on your final area to investigate.

Some general considerations are constant when thinking about the location to look in for your first home – and generally involve a ranking in importance to narrow down location searches.

What is important to you?
How important is the lack of a commute to work?
Conversely, what are you prepared to trade off in commuting time for finding the ideal home?

Related to this consideration is assessing your proximity to public transport. In these times of increasing petrol prices and chaotic travelling costs, does the area you are looking at have reliable train lines, bus or tram routes or any other kind of public transport? The increasing demand for public transport is witnessing increasing premiums on real estate prices as well.

How important is it for you to be located near family and friends? Neighbourhood networks and enclaves are very important for many prospective property purchasers and may well be important for you too.

Convenience to other amenities such as:
retail outlets
medical and other service facilities
is a given for most young families; however, the trade-off for lifestyle and the wider open spaces may be more important for you.

Those of you with young families – or who are in the family planning stage – will find the availability of educational facilities of paramount importance. A word of advice – think long term. This means thinking across the whole educational spectrum:
early childcare
preschool
primary school facilities
the availability – or potential availability – of secondary schools

Further down the track, tertiary educational facilities are likely to be an issue as well, so the availability of universities, TAFEs and technical colleges should not be out of your thought processes.
Proximity to recreational facilities is also an important consideration when deciding where to buy. There will always be times you would rather be in an open tree-lined park rather than the centre of trendy, inner city living.

You could do worse than think what your favourite activities are away from work. Is living near the beach a greater priority for you, or would you be happier living nearer a decent library or possibly arts or cultural centre? It could be that a location handy to your gym or maybe tennis courts, swimming pools or sports stadiums are what is most important to you.

You should never forget thinking about your environment.
What does the rest of the street that the property you desire is in, look like?
Do you feel the suburban surrounds are pleasant for you as well?
Is the property you’ve discovered on the main flight path into the city?

Is the property near loud or undesirable industrial activity?
Or, what many prospective purchasers forget to investigate, is loud or industrial activity planned for the area? You should ascertain this with the local council.

These are the very real considerations when you are deciding where you would like to purchase a property. Driving around those areas you would like to live is also a good tactic. You will be amazed at how many properties for sale you can spot when you're on the lookout. Write down the property and real estate agent's details and follow up any promising finds with the agents concerned.

By Geoffrey Rush-www.realestate.com.au

First Home Buyers - Useful Information

The first Home Buyers Grant BOOST runs out at the end of September.

Establshed Homes: $14,000
Building: $21,000

To ensure you don't miss out you need to have either a

• Contract of Sale - established homes
• Fixed Price Contract - Construction

This means you don't need to have finance approved before September 30, just one of the above.

If you are building and needing to have the fixed price contract, you need to keep this in mind

• Some builders can take up to 3 to 4 weeks to have a fixed price contract put together (REMEMBER: This needs to be signed before the 30th of September).
• If your approval date on your land is before you have a fixed price contract, then you may find your self having to pay Stamp Duty on the land.
• Most banks will not finance Owner Builder so it would be a lot less head aches through a registered builder.

Usually when you sign a contract of sale for an established home it will be subject to finance. Which means if you were declined then you get your deposit back.

However, when you sign a fixed price contract most builders won't give you your deposit back if you are declined because it costs them money to produce the contract (usually more than what you paid as a deposit).

To avoid losing your deposit it is a good idea to get a pre approval before you sign a fixed price contract.

Industry Market Wrap-RP DATA

The Reserve Bank this week released the minutes from their most recent board meeting which revealed an upbeat assessment of the national economy. The RBA have speculated that Australia’s economy will start to improve later in the year and that downside risks to a recovery have diminished. The minutes from the RBA suggests that, if necessary, there is scope to cut the official cash rate if there is a further need to stimulate demand.The release of CPI figures on Wednesday, the lowest in ten years, are likely to reinforce the Reserve Bank’s assessment of the economy. Based on the headline figures, consumer prices increased by just 1.5 percent over the year which is well below the Reserve’s target range of between 2 and 3 percent. The RBA’s preferred measure of inflation is underlying inflation, which removes volatile items such as fuel, fruit and vegetables, is much more stubborn, remaining outside the target range at 3.9 percent. Based on the high underlying inflation figure, it is unlikely that official interest rates will fall any further until the core inflation numbers fall within the target range.There are currently 113,000 residential homes for sale across Australia with an estimated market value of just over $40 billion. The total number of properties being advertised for sale around Australia has moderated over the last year, with current market stock about 13 percent lower than the same time last year. Auction clearance rates last week remained robust with Sydney and Melbourne both recording clearances above 80 percent. This week’s feature article provides an overview of auction markets around Australia over the last year, highlighting the improvement in clearance rates particularly in the key auction markets of Sydney and Melbourne. In other news, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) are proposing new national regulations that will impose heavy fines on real estate agents and vendors who consciously mislead buyers. The proposal from the ACCC is largely aimed at stamping out under quoting practices in the industry. RP Data has long been an advocate of transparency in the industry and supports a national framework that will assist in boosting the credibility and consistency of the real estate industry as a whole. Real estate agencies need to be transparent and adopt best practice models such as using Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) reports when setting the listing or reserve price with a vendor. More than 60,000 CMA reports are produced on rpdata.com every month, highlighting the fact that most agents are already engaged in best practice processes.

Each week RP Data collects the most comprehensive set of auction results available in Australia. Thank you to our vast network of real estate professionals who assist us with aggregating these results. The statistics show how many auctions were reported by RP Data as well as the total number of auctions that were scheduled over the last week (due to the large number of auctions we are unable to report 100 percent of the results). ‘Sold‘ properties indicate those properties that were either successfully auctioned on the day, sold before the auction or sold after the auction. Properties ‘Not Sold’ were either passed in at auction or withdrawn.

RP Data monitors advertised properties closely. Each week we update our databases with new properties that have been added to the market. Of course we also update the current stock listed for sale: what is the marketing history, have there been changes to the price or selling method, how long has a particular property been advertised for sale and who is selling it. Want to know what is happening in your local patch? Check out RP Data’s ‘On the Market’ service.Click here or phone 1300 789 303 for a free 2 week trial to find out how you can see what listings are available in your area with On the Market®.

RP DATA

Save Now, Fix Later

FinanceNick Gardner630 Words20 July 2009Daily Telegraph1 -
State31EnglishCopyright 2009 News Ltd. All Rights Reserved


MORTGAGE borrowers are being urged to stick with variable loans, despite warnings that interest rates could start rising early next year.
Experts say fixed rates have become so expensive they make little sense for all but the most conservative borrowers.
Three-year fixes now cost about 1.5 percentage points more than the average variable rate a margin equivalent to six, quarter-point rate rises.
Aussie Home Loans executive chairman John Symond says it does not make sense to lock into such a high rate today, ``given it will take six rate increases before a variable rate loan would be more expensive''.
``You are better off taking the savings today,'' he says.
Money markets where banks raise funds for lending are pricing in rate increases starting in early 2010, with the cash rate tipped to hit 3.4per cent in 12 months, 0.4percentage points up from today.
But, given that the rate on most variable mortgages is only about 5.5 per cent once you factor in the 0.7 percentage point discount on most loans there is plenty of room to absorb a few rate hikes and still be ahead.
Every economist Your Money contacted thinks the money markets have it wrong, and that rates will stay flat or fall in the next year.
AMP Capital Investors chief economist Shane Oliver says Australia's economy will contract in the June and September quarters, putting it in a technical recession. ``With unemployment still rising and inflation so low, the RBA will find it very difficult not to cut rates when that news comes through,'' he says.
Oliver predicts the cash rate will fall 0.75 percentage points to just 2.25 per cent by the end of this year, to be back near 3per cent in 12 months.
Macquarie interest rate strategist Rory Robertson is less bearish, but does not foresee interest rate rises in the next year.
``The recent economic data has been so good that there is no evidence households need helping right now,'' he says.
National Australia Bank chief economist Alan Oster says it's ``about 50-50 whether rates will stay flat or fall within the next few months''.
Economists and mortgage brokers say if borrowers are too stretched to afford future rate rises or can't sleep because of the uncertainty, fixing part of the loan is a good idea. But they say it is important to have some of the loan on a variable rate to maintain flexibility.
Commsec chief equities economist Craig James says rates may rise next year, ``but it will be a slow journey upwards and probably will only rise by 2per cent from today's
levels by 2012''.
Online Video
How interest rates work: We explain why the Reserve Bank does what it does dailytelegraph.com.au/yourmoney
THE EXPERTS FORECAST...
THE RESERVE BANK'S NEXT MOVE
* Craig James: Cash rate flat for next year and hitting 4 per cent in 2011.
* Shane Oliver: Rate to drop to 2.25 per cent by end of this year and be back to 3 per cent in a year's time, rising very slowly from then on.
* Rory Robertson: Flat for next year, and it won't rise until unemployment starts falling, likely to be in 2011.
* Alan Oster: 50/50 on whether rates will be the same or lower by the end of the year.