Apartment Buyer Checklist: Your Guide to Getting the Best Apartment

Summary:

Buyer Checklist: Affordability, finance, size, lawyers, brokers and purchasing agreements are all factors that need to be included when getting the best out of your apartment purchase.

6 points:

1. Purpose – figuring out what you are trying to achieve? Is the apartment to live in? or gain income?
2. Finance – What affordability capabilities do you have? Getting a broker is recommended by us over the bank
3. Criteria – How much, space, bedrooms etc. do you require.
4. Questions – Once you have criteria you will have an idea of what questions to be asking your agent
5. Support – What professionals do you need to achieve buying your property? i.e. lawyers
6. Conditions – what conditions are you going to put in place when        signing an agreement?  Your agent and lawyer can assist you with this

TRANSCRIPTION:

Good day, Andrew Murray here from the Apartment Specialists with an apartment buyer checklist. If you follow these six points, you can't go wrong.

Number one is finding out your purpose. Now this is really important. What I mean by this is: "What is your focus on?" "What do you want to achieve?" Is it capital gain? Is it income your main driver, like the rent minus expenses? Are you an owner-occupier? Are you looking for a good location? Do you have kids or is it more about lifestyle? Where you're not too concerned about capital gains? So, that's where leaseholders is a very good option.

Are you high risk, where you're looking at leaky buildings? Do you have access to the construction industry?  So, that is really, really important that you need to figure out, because that enables you to determine what kind of apartments you are looking for.

Then you have number two which is: What are your constraints? So this will be regarding your finance. What is your budget? Are you a cash buyer? Have you actually figured out what you can afford? How big is your deposit? This is where you go to your bank or your broker. And I actually highly advise a broker because they will choose the best bank for your situation. For example, the best rates, lending criteria and the size.

Number three is all about criteria. So having your purpose figured out, let us say it is capital gain and so you have done the finance. You know you can spend up to $600,000. This is starting to give you criteria and what it does is lead you to questions, because there are over 900 apartments on the market. This is always changing but there are a lot more than houses and there is so much choice. You need the criteria to get these basically 1,000 apartments down to these 15, 20 that you are actually looking at and then go through and do your research.

Let us go to number four and I just touched on this before. Now, this criteria is going to give you the questions to ask the real estate agent. When you inquire on that listing, you are going to say, "Okay, how big is it?" or "What's the earthquake rating?" or "Obviously this is two bedrooms. It's got another room, is that big enough for a third bedroom?" or "Has it got one car park? Okay, it's got no car parks, can car parks be rented in the building?"

Now all kinds of questions and that is really important because this will get you down to, basically, ten questions that will help you whittle down that list. This is to get the appropriate properties that you will need to go and look at it.

Number five and this is really important, because a lot of people don't actually do this one until the last minute. It's something that I can actually recommend you in regards to different professionals, whether it is building inspectors, lawyers, or accountants. But you need professionals to help you get the best apartment.

The most important one here is your lawyer, because your lawyer will probably be the one reading through those body corporate minutes. And that condition you've put it in. They are going to be checking those extraordinary general meeting minutes. They will also be helping you make sure that you are not buying into a building that is problematic. So, make sure you've got your professionals that are going to support what you have chosen.

Then we go to number six, which is the last one condition. Obviously, a lawyer will help you out with this, but also see the four conditions. I'll put in a podcast; basically four conditions every buyer should use and this is where you are putting in conditions to enable you to do the research on. So, you will know if the apartment that you have chosen suits your purpose.To make sure that it is a safe one, a good one, and you're going to prosper from it regardless.

I hope that helps. Feel free to go through our other podcasts and obviously search the other ones, and especially Buyer Type. If you are a bit confused on purpose, look under "What Kind of Buyer Are You?" and that podcast should help you figure that out your category.

If you have any questions, just flick me an email or any of the staff an email. You can send it to me on [email protected].

Cheers, bye!